PropTech Startup Goodlord Raises $13M For Engineering, Product

London PropTech startup Goodlord appears to have turned its bad luck around with a new 10-million-pound ($13 million) Series B funding round, TechCrunch reported.

Goodlord is planning to use the money to invest in engineering, product and customer-facing teams.

Although the startup had to lay off employees back in 2018, Goodlord grew last year to 97 employees from 47. There are additional positions still open.

Goodlord is backed by Finch Capital, which led the company’s previous round, also a Series B, and Latitude Ventures, which is a “sister” fund to London seed firm LocalGlobe. LocalGlobe was also a previous investor. Oxx Capital, the recently ousted software-as-a-service (SaaS) firm founded by Richard Anton and Mikael Johnsson, also contributed to the round.

The company was founded in 2014 as an alternative to other SaaS providers in that it works to support all stakeholders, including traditional High-Street letting agents, landlords and tenants. By contrast, other startups have eschewed physical brick-and-mortar space to focus on the digital world. Goodlord’s model works to digitize the move-in process, using eSignatures, collecting rent payments online and letting tenants benefit from a tenant dashboard and more transparency.

Goodlord CEO William Reeve said he initially only joined as a temporary placeholder for the company, but in that process, he ended up inspired by the company’s mission of solving “generation rent.”

Reeve said the company’s focus for now is on the transactional efforts of renting, such as contracts and payments. But he said the focus opens the door for more opportunities later, such as help with setting up utilities like broadband, after a lease has been signed.

Goodlord has also introduced a virtual banking component to the business in partnership with FinTech startup Modulr, which provides a dedicated bank account just for tenants to pay rent.

Digital solutions to replace the old ways, such as paper checks, have been cropping up in recent years.