A new rental website which claims to list “all available homes for young people in one place” has raised well over £3m in funding.
Hybr calls itself ”an aggregated platform for first-time renters, including students and young graduates” and boasts that it “aggregates all available homes for young people in one place, across private and institutional landlords, through a trusted platform.”
Its website takes a swipe at letting agents, claiming: “Just 3 in 10 students would recommend their lettings agents - 98% of students letting through Hybr would recommend us” although there is no source given for the figure about letting agents.
It goes on to say: “Our landlords save £1,983 on average. We never charge landlords unless they are happy with our service and we’ve found them great tenants to rent their homes. We can even advertise on Rightmove for you for free!”
A separate statement from the company says it is currently active in 10 UK cities and plans to launch in 20 “key university cities” in the coming 12 months.
Hybr says its focus is on using technology to improve relationships between landlords, agents, operators, and students and has been prompted into the sector because - it claims - 10 per cent of students drop out of higher education, largely because they can’t find a home, and because it states that 75 per cent of students never hear back after they make an enquiry online for a student property.
Hybr claims that it is rapidly becoming “the leading platform for first-time renters across the UK” with users doubling in number each quarter.
With its latest funding - of £3.24m - it has raised a total of £4.2m to date and founder and chief executive Hannah Chappatte, 26, says: “I am proud that we have secured an oversubscribed Seed Round, especially against the backdrop of this year, which has been a challenging time to raise capital. The funding marks the start of the positive impact we can have on the student rental space, and will enable us to accelerate our growth across the UK.”
New investors include start-up funders such as Blackwood Ventures and Adjuvo, plus at least two former major company chief executives.
Chappatte continues: “£3.24m is more than double our original target, which shows how ready the UK is for a solution like Hybr. This raise will allow us to expand our impact in a shorter time frame supporting millions of students across the UK to find the right housing, and support. This raise marks the beginning of our journey to improve the way young people rent.”
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Another game changer, disrupter or whatever. Come back in a year and see if they are still here. I hope they are charged for every city they advertise properties, just like other letting agents are.
Looks like they've just raised £3M+ ! Think they'll be here in a year!
They're not a portal, they're a letting agent- they just don't want to call themselves that. However, their fees marketing on the initial pages do not reflect what is then stated on their fees page. Based on a rent of £1500pm/£18k p/a I calculate their fees to be around 19% for their Full Management offering. Whilst it's nice to see a primarily online agent charge fees in line with our industry (and the top end of it) this seems very much at odds with their 'savings' statements on their home page.
Not sure where 19% came from! The landlords and agents can buy any add-ons for a certain price, or pass over their properties for full management to one of our local agency partners which we help grow/create new business for. We are legally compliant to be an agency, so correct in that sense, but operationally the platform works akin/similar to other platforms like AirBnB or Booking :)
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