An app that cuts out the paperwork in property deals has been tipped as an ‘industry game changer’ after receiving backing from private investors.
Goodlord allows letting agents, landlords and tenants submit their documents, payments and deposits digitally through the mobile app.
It also processes reference checks and contracts – as well as all the other documents involved – and can be customised and branded to match the company.
The app reduces the average paperwork time of a tenancy agreement from four hours to just 15 minutes.
Goodlord’ staggering grown since February means it now processed more than £1million a month in rental deals – and they are expanding further after investors from Charlotte Street Capital backed the property app.
Co-Founder and CEO Richard White said: ‘Goodlord has seen an incredible uptake since day one, and with today’s funding round we’re in a position to take the company to its next stage of growth.
‘Our vision is to revolutionise the way property is transacted, both rentals and sales. The property market is notoriously fragmented and the paperwork is still incredibly slow and inefficient.
‘Goodlord is on a mission to fix that by creating a uniform transaction standard for buyers and renters, and ultimately becoming the transaction gateway for property rentals and purchases.’
Since launching in February 2015, Goodlord has experienced spectacular growth in terms of users and fees transacted on the platform. The company is now processing well over £1 million per month in deposits in administrative fees from hundreds of tenants across the UK. To date, Goodlord has integrated with 10 per cent of the country’s real estate software solutions and is signing up new clients every day.
The seed amount raised by Charlotte Street Capital with additional funds from angel investors will be used to address the staggering demand, and to build out its sales teams and grow its business and operations.
For estate agents using the technology, the company generates and processes all necessary documents electronically, significantly minimising the time, cost and effort usually required to complete the administrative steps.
Similarly, for tenants and landlords, the procedure is streamlined and handled fully online via the Goodlord platform, from contracts and signatures, to reference checks and deposit payments. According to company data, the time required to complete the typical tenancy agreement paperwork is reduced to 15 minutes on the platform, down from an industry average of 4 hours.
Bo Pedersen, Partner at Charlotte Street Capital, said: ‘Roughly 1.7 million tenancy agreements are signed across the UK alone every year, in a market that is estimated at £750 million per annum.
‘By bringing the entire experience online, Goodlord offers a perfect product-fit to improve the overall process of transacting property. The company has tremendous potential to become a leading player in the property technology market.’
‘Goodlord is well positioned to scale rapidly and to disrupt one of the world’s largest markets. The founders come with a wealth of expertise in the real-estate sector, and the product is already showing the early signs of an industry game-changer. I’m very excited to be working with the Goodlord team and to contribute to accelerating their success.’
To date, Goodlord is Europe’s fastest growing and largest PropTech startup in terms of total amount of fees transacted, with £6 million in tenancy and deposit fees processed since launch.
