Ukrainian startup has attracted almost a million dollars without a finished product

Ukrainian startup Rentberry, a platform for long-term rental housing, managed to attract $845 thousand from twelve international investors, without having a finished product, and received a valuation of three million.

Among others, the so-called “seed investment” deal involved the heads of such venture capital companies as Carlyle Group, Synergo Private Equity, IFC, Pegasus Capital, Abris Capital, as well as the IT company Ericsson.

The size of the distributed equity participation in a startup at the prototype stage has not yet been disclosed. The launch of the service is scheduled for March 2016.

The Rentberry platform, whose authors are Ukrainians Alexey Lyubinsky, Liliya Ostapchuk and Arsen Kostenko, is designed to simplify the procedure for long-term rental housing in the United States, since all processes - viewing an apartment, signing contracts and monthly payments - can be made online.

This is not the first time a startup attracts money without providing a product. The record holder in this area can be called Magic Leap with an estimate of 4,5 billion dollars, which didn’t even show a prototype to investors. The startup’s authors, as far as we know, are working on creating virtual reality, and their revolutionary technology “should turn the world upside down.”

According to the founders of the startup Rentberry, their service will allow you to instantly check the tenant’s credit history, without which housing in America cannot be rented. In addition, it will be possible to offer your price for an apartment directly online, increasing the chances of getting housing, especially in large cities due to high competition.

While the startup is at the prototype stage, and the attracted funding will go directly to the development and promotion of the platform. Negotiations on attracting investment team led since August of this year, and the whole process of raising the round lasted about three months.

The entire Rentberry team consists of 11 people, most of whom are located in Kyiv and only three in San Francisco. Project CEO Alexey Lyubinsky says that more than 40 funds have expressed preliminary interest and are ready to participate in the next round of investment attraction.

Rentberry representatives explain their proposal by the rapid growth of the real estate market in the USA. Despite the fact that about 41 million apartments and houses in America are rented annually, on the Internet, they say, there is still no one-stop service that would fully cover the niche of a long-term lease.

Forum previously reported that another Ukrainian startup - a mobile application with smart recommendations and ratings for plant care - entered the top twenty the world's hottest startups for 2015 according to CNBC.

In addition, the UA50 volunteer project selected 11 Ukrainian startups who will be helped for free. build a business in the USA.

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