Member Article

Goodlord continues rapid ascent after closing £7.2m Series A backed by big-name VCs

Rental transaction platform, Goodlord, has announced the closure of its seven-figure Series A funding round after it attracted backing from some of the world’s biggest tech venture capital firms.

Silicon Valley investor Ribbit Capital, alongside existing investors LocalGlobe and Global Founders Capital, have contributed £7.2m to the investment round which Goodlord will use to improve the technology underpinning its platform and expand its team.

At the heart of the startup’s offering is its cloud-based architecture which the firm says makes it as easy to rent a home as making a payment on Paypal, with UK estate agents able to adopt Goodlord’s platform for a fee.

Agents including Strutt & Parker, Life Residential and Remax have already adopted the technology which ties together each stage of the rental process, including property search, tenant references, deposits and rent payments, to help cut down on administration costs.

Goodlord now claims that its platform has facilitated £200m-worth of tenancies and has signed up more than 300 agencies and 85,000 landlords and tenants on its system.

Chief Executive and Co-Founder, Richard White, explained that what of foundational aims of the business is to give Generation Rent a better service and more options after receiving a ‘raw deal’ from the rental market up to now.

He said: “Not only are they priced out of buying a home, they are often having to deal with slow, shoddy service when they try to rent a place.

“This funding will allow us to move to the next stage in our plan to revolutionise the way that rental property lettings are done, taking away the pain for both landlords and tenants.”

Today’s Series A is Goodlord’s second funding round in seven months and comes less than two months after it was admitted to Tech City UK’s second Upscale programme.

The firm has also said it intends to double the size of its team following the £7.2m funding round to around 117 people after working with a team of just 11 people a little over a year ago.

George Henry, who is Partner at LocalGlobe, believes the rental property market is ripe for innovation and that Goodlord’s rampant early success is a harbinger of things to come.

He commented: “For people under 37, the rental property market is the property market. Goodlord is developing products that can serve agents, landlords and tenants, all from the same app.

“For too long, tenants have been poorly served by this market, Goodlord will make it more transparent and efficient and is already proving extremely popular with agents and landlords across the country.”