A site that tries to assist college student search for and discover off-campus apartment, LoftSmart, recently got $12.9 million in an equity round of funding.
New York-based LoftSmart lets students search for and review properties typically rented by students, leaving feedback in each apartment building’s listing on amenities, problems, or other details that might help college kids when making a housing decision. The students can apply for an apartment through the website, too.
Apartment managers have a separate portal, where they can post and edit property listings, and review students’ applications. Students and managers can chat through the website, too. The portal for apartment managers is how LoftSmart makes money—the company charges managers a 4 percent to 8 percent fee if a student books through its website, according to Bloomberg.
The company got its start in 2015 while CEO Sam Bernstein was at University of Virginia. Bernstein dropped out of the school and moved to Austin, TX, to build the business. One night at a bar, he happened into Sundeep Kumar, an engineer at Dell, according to LoftSmart’s website. The pair began collaborating on the business, slowly at first, until they were accepted into the AngelPad accelerator in 2016 in New York, where they then moved the business.
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