The Portuguese startup that runs a booking platform for student accommodation, founded in 2012 and with headquarters in London, has raised $3.5M (£2.2m) in Series A. After start working on this idea at Startup Pirates @ Porto, which they won, Uniplaces also won several other startup competitions, like Startup Weekend Lisbon, BET Católica and the National Prize of Creative Industries among others.

Octopus, which had already injected £700,000 in Uniplaces in 2013 (along with Alex Chesterman and William Reeve) was joined in the round by angel investor Alex Chesterman (founder of Zoopla Property Group and LoveFilm), Portuguese angel fund Shilling Capital Partners and Rob McClatchey (former chairman of University Partnerships Program and managing director at Barclays Capital).

According to Ben Grech (co-founder of Uniplaces) the new funding will be used to target “major student markets” in Europe. They have international expansion plans to reach cities in France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Belgium and The Netherlands. Currently Uniplaces operates in the U.K., Portugal and Spain.

“There’s clearly no global player and the vision for Uniplaces is to become the global, trusted brand for student accommodation”