London startup Dwelly, founded by former Uber and Gett executives, has raised £69 million ($93 million) to accelerate a strategy of acquiring independent real estate agencies across the U.K. and upgrading their operations with artificial intelligence and other digital tools. The funding package includes £32 million in equity led by General Catalyst, with participation from Begin Capital and S16VC, plus a £37 million debt facility from Trinity Capital. Dwelly has already acquired 10 real estate agencies and plans to use the new capital to step up its acquisition pace while maintaining each firm’s local brand and staff.
The U.K. lettings sector comprises roughly 20,000 firms managing some 5.5 million rental properties that generate more than £100 billion in annual rent and £10 billion in agency commissions, yet the top 100 firms control less than 30% of the market and many still rely on phone calls and manual paperwork. Dwelly says it has crossed 10,000 properties under management, placing it among the U.K.’s top 15 largest letting agencies in less than two years, and it currently manages more than £200 million in gross rent. The company aims to reach 50,000 properties under management by the end of this year and grow headcount from close to 300 people to more than 1,500 as acquisitions continue.
Dwelly positions itself as an artificial intelligence enabled roll up, arguing that the real upside comes from acquiring customer relationships as well as operational efficiencies. The typical U.K. tenancy lasts about three years, making it hard to win landlords organically, so the founders describe acquisitions as tactically buying a customer base. They rejected the idea of selling artificial intelligence software alone, noting that software vendors might capture one and a half, 2% of the P&L of an agency, while an owner keeps 100% of the P&L. After buying an agency, Dwelly deploys its artificial intelligence powered system to automate tenant communications, background checks and offer management, which it says lifts the average to 10 validated offers per property within three days and cuts the time to find a tenant from roughly three weeks to under two. In property management, the company reports that artificial intelligence has reduced maintenance resolution times from about 50 days to 20 and is targeting 10 days by using chatbots and automated follow up with contractors. The founders stress that the technology is meant to remove administrative overload rather than replace staff, and investor General Catalyst describes Dwelly as turning thousands of analog processes into scalable software. While the company is focused on the U.K. for now, it is eyeing expansion into Western Europe, with France likely first, and eventually the United States, arguing that Europe is a strong environment to build in the artificial intelligence era.
