Hi WhoseYourLandlord Family,

The WYL Team is happy to announce that Google is providing $100k in non-dilutive funding to WYL through its Black Founders Fund.  We’re currently in the middle of a fundraise with 50% of it committed; so, this adds to our efforts! 

Since our launch, we’ve focused heavily on improving the experience of residents in the market - from college students, to low income families, to working professionals, retirees, pet owners - all renters. That laser focus enabled us to serve more than 2 million residents who’ve gone on to review 24,500 Home Providers (landlords, apartment buildings, and property management companies) across 400 US cities. 

Through a few conversations we had with folks at Related, Avalon Bay, Redburn Development, our partners at Berkadia, and others, we Learned that there was tremendous value in the data we’d been amassing all along. In fact, we Learned that our platform had already helped one developer 3x the value of their portfolio - growing by more than $42mm in value. In direct response to the customer-driven feedback we’ve received, we created WYL for Home Providers which enables owners and operators  to reduce their turnover rates (50% national average), better their capital improvement decisions, and enables them to be recognized as top Home Providers in their respective Communities.  After running paid pilots through August, the platform is ready to go to market - and we couldn’t be more excited about it!

Check out Google’s announcement and our feature in The Real Deal, where they talk about the growing needs/focus on housing reviews amid COVID and where they highlight some of our top ranked Home Providers in NYC! 

Definition of a WYL Home Provider: An owner/operator who views their resident(s) as human, first, and deserving of respect and dignity. They see their residents as part of the solution and not a part of the product.

Focus Upon Closing Round:

• Property management software integrations

• Integrations into proptech companies working with access management softwares

• Build features that drive more sales 

• Determine scalable ways to Grow our user base, review totals, and MoM revenue

• Add to our sales and product Team 

• Continue to strengthen engagement metrics between clients and their residents 

Our two core metrics: ‘number of landlords reviewed’ and 'number of units signed.’ 

• Our residents have reviewed 2,760 new Home Providers in 2021

• We ran paid pilots ($2/unit/mo) through the summer, converting 50% of customers to investors, 70% to 6 month and 12 month contracts. 

Q4 Focus: 

• Working with Berkadia and EY to target Philadelphia based/college student focused RE developers to onboard them to WYL for Home Providers

• Establish partnerships with retail, food delivery, grocery delivery companies like Grubhub, Instacart, Amazon, etc. to provide residents with added value for providing reviews 

• Complete PM software integrations with MRI and Realpage - which collectively have ~34 million units under contract 

• Integrate Twilio for added text messaging functionality for reviews 

Special Thank Yous to: 

• Our existing investors at 43 North for following on with additional funding

• Our newest investors: Jack Greco (Co-Founder, ACV Auctions), Paul & Kyle Ciminelli (Ciminelli Real Estate Corporation), Antonio Davilia (Owner, EuroTech Motors), Kyle Gagliardi (KGIII Rentals), Just Heart Cardiovascular Group, Inc. (Dr. Camellus Ezeugwu & Sirlyne Ezeugwu) 

• Kenji Funahashi + Wilson Sonsini (WSGR) for joining as co-counsel with Lee Shlamowitz + LMS Legal

• Clive Davis for having us present to the African American Multifamily Investor Network in August

• Carolyn Brown for having us present to the Philadelphia Housing Security Working Group in August 

• Goodie Nation for the Black Founders community you’ve warmly invited us into

• Jewel Burks-Solomon and the Google for Startups Team for the funding  

• Bryce Nyberg and Rachel Startzel for your Leadership, mentorship, and intros stemming from our bi-weekly meetings with Berkadia 

• Ciminelli Real Estate Corporation and Savarino Companies for participating in our “I am a landlord Home Provider” initiative 

• Walmart for providing WYL with $15k to help our resident users to get vaccinated  

• Eric Shashoua, Andrew Benioff, and Michael Beckerman for making so many promising real estate and operational introductions for us

Our Goal: WYL is building the world's most Trusted rental community. 

Needs: Introductions to Philadelphia based owners and operators.

#moremore,

O