Rentberry, a home rental platform founded by Ukrainians, has attracted $2.5 million of investments from more than 2,000 private investors on WeFunder. The startup plans to spend the raised funds on launching a new product.
In the comment for AIN.UA, co-founder of the startup Oleksiy Lubinsky says that it was the third funding round of Rentberry, and the startup raised $4.5 million, of which $2.3 million was raised on WeFunder. Angel Investors Marlborough, partner of McKinsey & Company Srikant Inampudi, and CEO of Invesque Scott White participated in this round.
The round was closed on June 29, 2020. Thus, the startup raised $13 million in investments.
About Rentberry
Rentberry is a Ukrainian real estate startup. Initially, it was launched in the U.S. market, but later the service also scaled up to Europe and Asia. Currently, according to the developers, Rentberry is available in over 40 countries.
The Rentberry product is a transparent and secure home rental platform that connects tenants and landlords. All procedures, such as viewing an apartment, signing agreements, and monthly payments, are done online. The feature of Rentberry is that you can offer your apartment price on the website, literally turning a rental process into an auction.
As of 2019, the platform had 6 million registered properties worldwide and 900,000 users. As of today, Rentberry has 292,000 active users per month.
The whole Rentberry team, including co-founders Oleksiy Lubinsky, Lily Ostapchuk, Alex Kotovskov, and Denis Golubovskiy, are from Ukraine. They develop the product in the Kyiv office of Rentberry. Currently, Rentberry employs 30 people.
What was the money raised for?
In 2020, Rentberry plans to launch a VR tool on its platform, which, according to developers, will help to eliminate realtors and intermediaries from the rental process. The funds will be spent on its development and launch, as well as further development of the platform in new markets.
The startup has raised over $10 million in investments during its existence. Among the investors are Zing Capital, 808 Ventures, Beechwood Ventures, angels from Google, McKinsey, and CBRE.
What is WeFunder
WeFunder is a crowdfunding platform for micro-investment in startups. Here everyone can invest as little as $100 in the startups one loves, and then, as a full-fledged shareholder, receive regular reports and dividends in case the company makes a profit.
WeFunder warns that it does not give any guarantees on the return of funds. If the startup goes bankrupt, the investors will only lose their money.
2,216 micro-investors have invested in the Rentberry project through WeFunder. The fundraising was completed on June 30, 2020, and the invested amount totaled $2,319,549.