A rental startup named Goodlord, which provides software for estate agents and tenants has raised £7.2 million from first-time investors Ribbit Capital, and current backers Global Founders Capital and LocalGlobe.
The Series A round follows a £2 million seed round last year. A Berlin-based startup incubator, Rocket Internet, had teamed up with the London-based firm LocalGlobe to back Good lord in a £2 million seed funding round.
Good lord was co-founded in London by Richard White (CEO), a former Foxtons estate agent, and his brothers Philip and Tom Mundy.
Philip Mundy resigned in December to establish a medtech company named Forward Clinical, while Tom Mundy still remains with the business.
Goodlord’s software helps estate agents to sign up new tenants for their rental properties, holding deposits, handling references and document uploads. Their goal is to make the rental process simpler and more transparent. The company will use the round to recruit more developers and improve its tech.
Ribbit Capital is headquartered in Palo Alto, giving the startup a foot in the US if it ever considers itself for expansion. The VC Company was started in 2012 by Meyer Malka and has invested in other UK property startups. Recently, Ribbit Capital led a £5.5 million round into online loan startup Habito.
Goodlord boasts some other major sponsors. Rocket Internet’s tycoon Oliver Samwer is already an investor through his Global Founders Capital fund, while Robin Klein is involved through the London-based LocalGlobe.
The company currently has more than 300 estate agents registered on its platform, while successfully processing £200 million in tenancies. The founder of Goodlord, Richard White, made a statement envisioning major success which goes, “I see us as building a PayPal for the property market.”
Richard had observed that estate agents are still using outdated software, so he founded Goodlord to provide software as a service.
“We see enormous potential for disruption in the way that rental property in the UK is transacted. Goodlord is using technology to build transparency and ease of use for one of the most important moments in a consumer life: choosing a home to live in,” Malka said in a statement.