Time.news – It’s called Zappyrent, “the name is a crasis between the zapping that is done with television channels and the English word rent (rent) and suggests a certain speed in the practice of renting houses” says Lino Leonardi who, together with brother Antonino, he founded the startup that invented the 2.0 evolution of the real estate agency and that he just has a 1.2 million euro financing round closed.
Thanks to an artificial intelligence algorithm, Zappyrent is able to estimate the “degree of risk” of a tenant and offers a special guarantee to landlords which allows the owner of the property to receive the rent regularly every month without exception, even in the event of arrears or late payments by the tenants. A feature that makes the platform unique, earning it the title of first player in Europe for regular monthly payments.
In a context where on average a private owner takes over 75 days to rent an apartment e 60% of tenants do not pay the rent regularly, Zappyrent convinced investors and brought new capital into the startup’s coffers.
How did the idea come about?
“After having experienced firsthand the difficulties of traditional rental systems, both in Milan and in London, I started managing a series of properties, which also allowed me to understand the needs of homeowners and how difficult and stressful it is to “chase” those tenants who do not pay the rent. My brother Antonino and I have combined our real estate, financial and programming skills to create a platform that simplifies the entire rental process thanks to the use of technology “.
“The idea behind it is to create the perfect match between tenant and landlord.” Technology in our business is central, thanks to 3D tours, virtual visits and online reservations it is possible to rent one of the properties in our network from all over the world, after having visited it virtually, while the owner can manage the advertisement by publishing it in full autonomy, receiving and signing contracts online “.
What happens when an owner chooses to rely on you?
“You can decide whether to do everything yourself by uploading your ad on the platform or alternatively ask us for assistance, then an appointment is made to carry out the virtual tour and collect the house keys, there are no contracts to sign because we do not ask for any exclusivity on the ‘immovable. Once the ad has been uploaded, we set the visits and when we receive a proposal from a tenant who has passed our “security checks” we forward it to the owner who at that moment is free to sign the contract online and start receiving the rent directly from we”
What is the goal?
“We want to enhance our technology by making the relationship between landlord and tenant even safer and broaden our range of action by bringing our service to many other cities in Italy. Today Zappyrent aims to reach 20 million in turnover in 2024. The dream is to become a leader in Italy and in Europe for medium and long-term rentals. We would like to become the reference point for any homeowner, especially for those who are tired of slow bureaucratic processes and lawsuits for non-payments “.
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