Halo.rent raises £1.25m to digitize home rental process 

<11th May 2021>: Halo.rent, a proptech startup from the UK, announces the launch of its tenant engagement platform that streamlines the entire rental onboarding process, and offers additional services to tenants and landlords during the tenancy. The company has raised a £1.25m pre-seed round from angel investors and the European Commission. The platform is now open to the public, following field testing with leading UK property managers.

The property rental process today is very fragmented. Tenants discover properties on classified ads portals, but that’s where their digital journey ends. Keeping track of the disparate apps designed to coordinate and ease home rentals is a struggle. Neither tenants nor agents have a clear overview of each stage of individual service provider, and typically experience a time-consuming process of email and phone communications.

Halo.rent automates operations and communications with the help of AI, making the whole experience transparent and stress-free. Unlike a property management system, Halo.rent is a tenant engagement platform that enables agents and property managers to unify their services and partner offerings into one digital tenant experience. The technology layer aggregates all of the individual service providers (existing property management systems, smart deposit services, utility switching companies, credit checks, referencing) into one engaging, intuitive platform. Agents benefit from an average 90% reduction in administrative tasks. They also gain exposure to additional revenue streams through a curated marketplace of service providers who offer commission payouts. Tenants can rent homes within just a few clicks and have all their home services handled in one platform. 

During development, Halo worked with a small group of senior advisors*, from both the technology and property sectors, including Alvaro Bolivar, Ivan Gowan, prof. Andrew Baum and Nick Jopling. Over the last six months, the technology has been successfully tested with a number of smaller letting agents in the market and, more recently, they’ve started testing it with larger operators like FirstPort and High Street Group. 

“Halo.rent is helping to change the rental market for good,” says prof. Andrew Baum. “I believe its technology-driven service layer will become a market standard in the coming years. It’s a game-changer for both letting agents and larger property managers.”

“Today, tenant rental journeys are broken and frustrating due to fragmented and outdated software environments,” said Benas Baltramiejunas, co-founder and CBDO at Halo. “Our mission is to make renting a home seamless and fun! We’ve modernized the process, and we’re seeking to create a one-stop-shop for the 135m (and counting) renters in Europe.” 

Notes to Editors:

About Halo.rent

Home renting, made easy

Halo.rent is a tenant engagement platform that makes renting faster and easier.

The customisable HaloOS platform plugs into any PMS to help agents and property managers unify their services and partner offerings.

For agents, it makes closing rental deals faster by streamlining critical workflows and unifying communications.

For tenants, the Halo Tenant App makes renting pain- and paper-free. It provides all the digital rental experiences they expect, from signing on the dotted line to finding the best insurance, broadband, utility deals and other services.

Our team is on a mission to make seamless renting a part of happy living – because renting a home should be just as pleasant as living in it. We’ve created a unified rental ecosystem, where tenants, service providers and agents can thrive together. But that’s just the first step, and our goals will continue to evolve together with the needs of those we serve.  

*Senior advisory team:

Andrew Baum
Andrew Baum is chairman of real estate fund manager Newcore Capital and advisor to multiple property businesses and PropTech ventures. He is also a professor of Practice at the University of Oxford, where he founded the Future of Real Estate Initiative, and he is the author of PropTech 3.0: The Future of Real Estate.

Nick Jopling

Career including leading CBRE residential UK business and executive property direct of FTSE 250 Grainger PLC. Previous chairman of both the UK and European ULI residential council. 

Ivan Gowan

Serial entrepreneur and executive leader with 18 years experience in capital markets and 20 years in market-leading technology, like PensionBee, IG, Capital.com, Currency.com and many others.

Alvaro Bolivar

VP of Platform at Depop, with extensive experience leading product engineering teams in tech giants with the likes of Facebook, eBay, Verizon and PayPal. Active angel investor in several UK & USA startups.

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