Livly: Started by Cedar Street founder and former WeWork employees

Rental property management software provider, Livly, has become somewhat of a company of interest to firms like the Related Companies, Golub & Company, and CA Ventures.

In developing 8,000 apartment units over 15-plus years, Alex Samoylovich learned quite a bit about the demands of renters and the inefficiencies in multifamily property management.

Now the founder of Cedar Street Companies and Flats Chicago is using that knowledge to launch Livly, a property management system that streamlines the apps and technology that renters and landlords use.

Livly is an operating system and smart-phone app that seeks to be a central platform for paying rent, logging maintenance requests, booking amenities and fielding tenant inquiries, among other services.

The product will help landlords reduce property management expenses while unlocking “ancillary” revenue through the more efficient use of building space, Samoylovich said. It also seeks to create a more seamless tenant experience, he said.

The increasing demand for rental units and the corresponding rash of new deliveries have made the multifamily market hyper competitive. A system tying together a building’s amenities and services can be a huge leg up for landlords, Samoylovich said.

“In apartments, people are trying to keep their tenants,” he said. “In the future, it won’t be about the amenity races. It will be about the experiences and services that will help keep and retain tenants. By retaining and increasing your retention slightly, that increases the value of your property significantly.”

Livly already has some big backers and early adopters. The company is backed by $10 million in seed funding from Pritzker Group Venture Capital, Navitas Capital and JLL Spark, the $100 million fund launched last year by JLL to back real estate tech ventures. It is being rolled out at properties controlled by industry giants the Related Companies, Golub & Company and CA Ventures, according to the company.

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