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With a $16.7 million Series A round stressing its pocket stitches, rental property management and resident relations solution for single-family rentals, Latchel, is primed to bring even more innovation to the rental industry.
Led by F-Prime Capital, the financing round will help the company develop deeper integrations and increased flexibility when it comes to working with clients’ existing proptech suite.
RiverPark Ventures and existing investors, MetaProp, Bain Capital Ventures, 1984 Ventures and Hack VC, also participated in the financing, according to a company statement. John Lin of F-Prime Capital will join the board.
“The most rewarding part of being able to build solutions in this industry is the relief, reassurance, and empowerment we’ve been able to give to our customers and their residents,” said Ethan Lieber, CEO and Founder of Latchel, in the release. “We’re excited to have more fuel to continuously improve the solutions as we build, expand, and allow more property managers to provide better and more competitive resident service.”
Latchel introduced a fintech component focused on Vendor Pay functionality, allowing property managers to easily manage and automate invoicing for service providers.
The company’s value proposition is rooted in frictionless maintenance operations, and in turn, improved tenant service.
“Maintenance inquiries and questions are answered by experienced professionals in 60 seconds, 24/7/365 – a long overdue departure from voicemails and elongated periods between request and response,” the release stated.
Tenant relations are strengthened by a slew of benefits accessible through the system’s interface, including, cashback incentives for timely rent payments and securing various forms of renter’s insurance, among other proactive actions. It also facilitates home cleaning, television mounting, landscaping and any number of chores vital to comfortable rental home occupancy.
The software automates tenant repair requests through a user dashboard, rapidly filtering them to the most appropriate preferred vendor and keeping property management in the loop, helping it avoid operational duress.
Overall, property managers get to spend less time firefighting in a hyper-reactive state, and more time proactively improving the health of their business.
Latchel’s development was driven in part by the increased strain placed on property management professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in millions of Americans spending much more time at home, in their rental properties. More use tends to equal a greater need for service, especially as more Americans see rental homes as a long-term solution.
The need should only increase as single family homes become a new asset class for institutional landlords.
“There has been a lot of investment in the proptech space, but most of it has been around customer acquisition rather than how property managers can better serve their residents,” John Lin, Investor at F-Prime Capital, said in the release. “Latchel is one of the few companies that is focused on the day-to-day operations management and creating a better experience for the resident.”
