Published : 7 years ago, on 18/10/2017

• Focused on mid- to long-term rental accommodation, Spotahome facilitates home rentals from any location in the world in minutes, without the need to physically visit the property.
• Operating in nine different countries (Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria and UAE) and 16 cities across the EMEA region, in the three years since its founding the company has closed contracts of $71.1 million in value for landlords and rented out more than three million nights of accommodation.

Spotahome, the online platform for accommodation rentals for mid- to long-term stays, has added  $16.1 million to a Series A investment round, bringing its accumulated capital raised to $25 million since the company’s founding in 2014. The rounds have been led by Passion Capital and Seaya Ventures. Other investors who either joined this round or invested through other rounds in 2015 and 2016 are HOWZAT Partners, Samaipata Ventures, Arthur Kosten, Nordic Makers (Klaus Nyengaard, Alexander Aghassipour, Thorvald Stigsen, Hampus Jakobsson), Jon Uriarte and Ander Michelena, Gate 93 Ventures, Mexico Ventures, Apostolos Apostolakis, Gura Investments, Charlotte Street Capital, Samos Investments, Modara Technologies, Mark Zaleski as advisor and others are the investors, who have put their trust in the disruptive business and between them previously contributed to the successes of other companies such as Just-Eat, Booking.com, Amazon, Zendesk, Yahoo!, Ticketbis, Trivago and Momondo.

Alejandro Artacho, CEO and co-founder of Spotahome stated “It is really inspiring to see all our previous investors from 2015 and 2016 following on in each new round. And for us, it is a great honour to have on-board Seaya Ventures and Passion Capital as our leading investors, and specially Beatriz González and Stefan Glänzer as Spotahome’s Directors.”

In the space of only three years and as of the end of last month (end-September), Spotahome has generated more than $71.1 million in total contract value for landlords, homeowners and property managers who have entrusted their rental properties to the company. With the company currently in a growth- stage with its revenue multiplying by four year-on-year, this latest capital raise will allow Spotahome to achieve several goals. Firstly, Spotahome will consolidate its presence in countries where it already operates, both to strengthen and extend its reach in each of those markets. Additionally, the company will invest in the continued development of digital and technical products to digitalise services in the value chain of real estate, which will improve the experience for both tenants and landlords. Finally, the company will continue hiring first-class international talent as it reinvents the real estate sector by making it more transparent and simple.

Beatriz González, Founder and Director of Seaya Ventures, stated “We are very excited to continue to support Spotahome in their goal to become the number one global long-term rental digital platform. The founders have done a terrific job and we are very honoured to lead this investment along with Passion Capital.” In addition, Stefan Glänzer, Co-founder of Passion Capital, said “It’s hard to be not blown away by the energy and capability of the Spotahome founders, making mid-term renting a pleasant experience.”

Alejandro Artacho, CEO and co-founder of Spotahome, said “This round is a significant boost that will allow us to continue our revolution of real estate. This sector has always had the scourge of being too traditional and not very innovative. At Spotahome, we are working hard to change this. Our mission is to reinvent Real Estate making it transparent, instant and exciting, loved at last.”

The world’s largest real estate video library

Spotahome’s business model focuses on the residential rental market, for mid to long-term stays. Through its simple website one can rent houses, rooms in shared apartments and student halls that can be viewed online thanks to HD first person video tours that shows details of the house, 360º high quality photographs and floor plans of each property, trustworthy descriptions and information about the neighbourhood. This process is possible due to the work of the “Home checkers”, members of the Spotahome team who visit every property to develop all the audio-visual material and verify the listing. This differentiating attribute is what has made Spotahome the first digital video library in the real estate sector, accumulating high quality audio-visual material for more than 40,000 properties in Europe and the Middle East.

Founded in 2014 by Alejandro Artacho (CEO), Bryan McEire (CTO), Bruno Bianchi (COO), and Hugo Monteiro (VP of Engineering), users from more than 185 different nationalities have booked more than 3 million nights of rental accommodation via the Spotahomewebsite since then, backing the company’s business model that is firmly committed to removing the need for physical property viewings.

Benefits and guarantees for landlords and tenants

The company offers additional guarantees to safeguard landlords in case of eventual contract cancellation, guarantee against payment default and coverage of home damages, but also to avoid multiple home visits thanks to its video tour system through high-definition videos and 360º. Spotahome also offers big benefits to tenants: Customer service in 9 different languages, secured bank transactions through payment gateways and last-minute cancellation insurance.

Spotahome is deemed to be the perfect partner by property managers as well as other real estate participants, thanks to its transactional business model and how it applies big data by advising new real estate investors, providing profitability figures per region or city area, customer trends and much more.

Team and human talent

In only three years Spotahome already employs around 200 people of 30 different nationalities at its headquarters in Madrid, and additionally the company collaborates with more than 100 freelancers as “Home-checkers” across the different countries where the company is operating.