Property Technology company, SmallSmall has raised $3 million seed funding to expand operations across Nigeria.
The fund, which comes as a $2 million equity and $1 million debt, will facilitate SmallSmall’s goal to provide flexible, quality housing solutions and financing to intending home buyers, as well as enhance its technology and partnerships with landlords, developers, property and asset managers, including other key stakeholders.
Investors who participated in the seed round were Oyster VC, Asymmetry Ventures, Vivaz, and Niche Capital. Angel investors were Sean Fannan of Chartboost, Adam Meghji of Universe, Jimmy Ku of Flutterwave, Samir Goel and Wemimo Abbey of Esusu, Jason Njoku of Iroko and Tunde Kara of Vendease.
Founded to tackle the rental issues made up of time consumption and lack of payment ease, SmallSmall was founded by Tunde Balogun, Naomi Olaghere and Pidah Tnadah in 2018. The company started as RentSmallSmall, a property letting product that enables seamless home search and free inspection for customers. Afterwards, it built Buy2Let, including real estate investment to its focus and StayOne, providing quality living spaces with nightly payments.
So far, SmallSmall has processed over 25,000 monthly stays across Lagos and Abuja, with users having an average stay of 17 months on the platform. The company participated in the Techstars Toronto Accelerator Program in 2021 and was the first African proptech startup to get into the program, receiving $120,000 as part of its pre-seed round. It also affirms to have rent default rate below 7%, saving property owners over $1.5 million in damages and tenants over $1.2 million in broker fees.
With SmallSmall, the issues of rental default will no longer be faced by landlords, who will in turn access quality tenants and receive extra margins of about 10-15% with monthly payments.
The company asserts to have had over 476,000 registrations on its platform since 2018, with 80,000 on its waiting list and almost 1,500 served. By the end of first quarter, 2023, it seeks to have expanded into three more Nigerian states including Port Harcourt, Enugu, and Jos.
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