New York-based rental technology company UpTop announced it raised $5.5 million in funding led by KAL Investments. UpTop plans to use the funding to expand on its platform and creating a new rental ecosystem for renters, owners, and property managers.
“We see this as an opportunity to be an early part of a company with a vision to change how people rent around the world,” said Khalifa Alghanim of KAL Investments.
Founded by CEO Frank Barletta and CTO Brad Marder in 2015, UpTop streamlines the rental and management process at no cost for property owners or manager. And renters are able to benefit as the platform shows units and complete the process from their smartphones. And owners and managers are able to fill their vacancies without issues. The rent is collected electronically and deposited directly into their bank accounts.
“UpTop understands the pains of the rental and management process for renters, property owners, and managers, and no one seems to want to improve it, so we’re going to,” explained Barletta. “We are really excited to be doing something way different than the current market. To re-segment the way people do business within the rental tech space feels really good and the attention and signups we’re achieving tells us that we’re on track to make a big impact by 2020. By providing owners and managers with the ability to list current and future vacancies, screen prospects, eSign leases, collect rent, fulfill maintenance requests and manage reports and accounting– literally everything to improve bottom lines and improve cash flow by managing rental properties through UpTop.”
To further grow the business, UpTop acquired Yorango earlier this year. Yorango — which was incubated by the Cornell eLab accelerator program for student startups — offered a cloud-based property management suite to SMB landlords and property managers. And Yorango was also backed by Excell Partners, CenterState CEO, and Startup Labs.
