UK-based startup PropertyCard has secured $1.4 million in a funding round led by the former president of Virgin Galactic, Will Whitehorn, and former CEO of Kanoo Capital, Stergios Voskopoulos, the company’s founder and CEO Oliver Muller tells Forbes Middle East.
Founded by the Lebanese-German entrepreneur in 2017, the prop-tech startup provides homeowners and tenants with smart cards to allow them to manage property payments such as rent and utilities.
Property payments services
The startup, which provides its services to a closed group of 1,000 property owners, will officially launch in the UK in 2022 after securing the new funding. “We’ve been working on PropertyCard for five years, building a super-app that handles all property payments and services in one place,” says Muller, who invested $481,000 and secured an additional $892,000 from angel investors.
The platform works via open banking. “Users can connect to any UK bank account. We are partners with BUD and TrueLayer, and they provide us with the bank connection for all banks,” he explains.
Muller added that the app allows users to store documents like contracts and list their properties while managing all the payments. “We are covered by the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) banking licenses,” he notes.
Expansion plan
While the startup is launching in the UK, it also seeks to expand its offering to include mortgage while venturing into the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. “Already local partners in MENA have reached out to us for integration, JV deals, and other lucrative partnerships,” added the founder, without naming the potential partners.
Muller also pointed out that the company plans to have 10,000 users in 2022. “We will speak with landlords who own 5,000 homes in London”.
PropertyCard also plans to reward cardholders for every pound spent via the platform. Points will accrue until they are redeemable for cash and other rewards. “Rewards could be cryptocurrencies or stocks. We have not decided yet, this is still under discussion,” said Muller.
The entrepreneur sees a huge potential in the property payments area, claiming that property-related payments constitute 30% of monthly global payments.
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