Peter Lohmann's Newsletter - Issue #93

VC-Backed Property Management Companies

Did you know that for years I have maintained a list of all the VC-backed property management companies?

Today I updated the list, and will share it right here in the newsletter!

Note, this list is intended to be a collection of true property management companies — that is, firms which are actively engaged in the day-to-day of property management such as leasing, rent collection, and maintenance. There are thousands of other proptech companies that provide ancillary services to property owners, tenants and property management companies; they are beyond the scope of this list.

In descending order of amount raised:

1. Mynd (founded 2016, Oakland). Raised 205M. “Mynd Property Management is a customer-first, tech-enabled property management firm.” CEO Doug Brien.

2. Belong (founded 2018, San Mateo). Raised 138M. “Belong is a residential network that vertically integrates all aspects of the home rental and home improvement process.” CEO Ale Resnik.

3. Poplar Homes (Previously Onerent) (founded 2014, San Jose). Raised 132M. “Manage and monetize rental property in the cloud.” CEO Greg Toschi.

4. Pure (founded 2020). Raised 50M. “We’re not here to disrupt or re-imagine anything, just solve the real problems that our property managers, residents and owners face every day.” Co-Founders Mike Catalano and Joe Polverari. Note, funds raised are not VC.

5. Home365 (founded 2015, Palo Alto). Raised 50M. “Home365 makes owning and renting out real estate easy, predictable, and more profitable than ever before.” CEO Daniel Shaked.

6. Darwin Homes [Aquired by Pagaya in 2023] (founded 2018, Austin). Raised ~45M. “Darwin is a vertically-integrated investment management platform with a comprehensive solution for the acquisition, renovation, and management of single-family rental properties.” CEO Ryan Broderick.

7. Doorstead (founded 2019, San Francisco). Raised 38M. “Technology-operations brokerage that provides full-service property management and cash-flow certainty to residential property owners.” CEO Ryan Waliany

8. Great Jones [Acquired by Roofstock in 2021] (founded 2019, New York). Raised 33M. “Great Jones is building the modern operating platform for the residential rental asset class.” CEO Jay Goldklang.

9. Nomad (founded 2020, Denver). Raised 24M. “Nomad makes renting better for property owners and residents.” CEO PJ O’Neil.

10. Knox Financial [Acquired by Doorstead in 2022] (founded 2018, Boston). Raised 14M. “Knox is the smart and frictionless way to turn the user’s home into an investment property delivering passive income… Knox Financial helps people manage and identify residential rentals with its algorithm-based platform.” CEO David Friedman.

11. Castle (founded 2015 in Detroit, defunct as of 2018). Raised 13M. “Castle manages rental homes for landlords using automation and on-demand labor.” CEO Max Nussenbaum.

12. Hemlane (founded 2015, San Francisco). Raised 12M. “Technology enabled property management.” CEO Dana Dunford.

13. NestEgg [Aquired by Truehold in 2022] (founded 2017, Chicago). Raised 12M. “NestEgg is a real estate company that helps independent real estate investors create wealth by streamlining the property management process.” CEO Eachan Fletcher.

14. Simplifyy (founded 2019, Kansas City, defunct as of 2022). Raised 10M. “SaaS, Multifamily Technology, Proptech, RentTech.” CEO Jake Lisby.

15. Appreciate (founded 2022, Columbia MO). Raised 1M. “Tech-enabled Property Management”. CEO Nick Farquhar.

Side note — Worth mentioning is this great round-up of 10 VC-backed companies targeting the short-term & vacation rental property management industry.

THIS ISSUE IS PRESENTED BY UTILITY PROFIT

Utility Profit is a new, free service for property managers that does three things:

1. Provides a dashboard with the status of all resident utility transfers for upcoming move-ins.

2. It gives residents a branded website to identify and set up their utilities, 24/7, without a phone call.

3. Shares their commissions with you, the PM! Get paid for utility setups.

Best of all? No long-term contracts (they’ll even pay to help you get out of any existing utility concierge agreement you may have.)

I did a demo with these guys and I was extremely impressed. Check them out.

How I Take June Off Every Year

I recently joined Spencer Sutton (CMO at Evernest) to discuss a wide range of topics, including how I take a mini-sabbatical every year, the impetus behind starting Crane, and my “think week” solo retreats.

I think you’ll enjoy this podcast a lot, so give it a listen on your favorite platform:

• Apple

• Spotify

New Property Management Companies For Sale This Week

• Here’s a PM company for sale in Sacramento County, CA. (1,800 doors, asking 4.5M).

• Here’s a PM company for sale in Los Angeles, CA (99 doors, asking 425k).

• Here’s a PM company for sale in Eagle County, CO (85 properties, asking 450k).

• Here’s a PM company for sale in South Carolina (asking 375k).

• Here’s a community association management company for sale in Palm Beach, FL (asking 250k).

• Here’s a unique management company for sale in Cape Coral, FL (asking 720k). “The company manages 60 homes in a highly sought-after area for both domestic and European tourists. Most of the properties are single-family homes with pools, and some are located on canals with direct access to beaches and the Gulf… Most homeowners are located in Europe, particularly Germany, and a significant portion of tenants also come from Europe. While spoken German is a plus, it's not mandatory as the employees are German speakers.”

Industry News and Events

• USA Today put together an interesting article about increasing rental application fraud and how it affects rents.

• NARPM has announced that registration is open for their fall national convention & trade show, taking place Oct 21-24 in Dallas. See you there.

• ProfitCoach is hosting the next data-drive process design workshop on Wednesday. Join myself and other industry experts as we attempt to standardize PM operational benchmarks and metrics.

• Also on Wednesday, RentScale is hosting a 90-minute workshop entitled “3 Lessons We've Learned After Hiring Over 300 Business Development Managers” — register here.

• Crane Members: Don’t miss Tuesday’s livestream… Wolf and I are announcing something brand new! RSVP inside Circle. Also don’t forget to stop by my first Office Hours today at 2:30pm eastern. Hang out, work, ask me anything.

Closing Thought

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Stats from last week’s issue:

Valid Recipients: 8,719

Open Rate: 58.8%

Clickthrough Rate: 9.7%

Most Popular Link (228 clicks): Showmojo Leasing Update

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P.S. Did you know I run a private community for property managers with at least 100 doors under management? Learn more here.

That’s all for this week! Have a great weekend. -Peter