Rentable plans one-stop shop for rental housing
Madison-based startup is already national name
Rentable is trying to create a onestop spot for renters and property managers.
The Madison-based startup is one of the largest online apartment marketplaces in the country. The rental market, like that for residential real estate, is hot right now and moving quickly.
Rentable wants to shift online apartment hunting from a classified-style experience to a one-stop, full-service destination to research, tour, apply and sign a lease.
The goal is to create a database of rentals similar to the multiple listing service for buying residential real estate.
“Rentals is an old, big industry that is not dominated by consumer technology companies,” said Alec Slocum, CEO and Co-Founder of Rentable. “Most of the companies here started as print pamphlets. Renters have been served poorly.”
Rentable has grown from a database of listings around college campuses to a national resource for renting.
The company remains in growth mode and has a fresh round of financing. It recently raised $22.5 million with Susquehanna Growth Equity as its lead investor.
Rentable plans to double its workforce over the next 12 months to 180 employees. It currently has about 90
employees, half of whom are based in Madison.
The technology company plans to add employees in sales, engineering, product and business development. It expects that many will be based in Madison or Milwaukee, although Rentable has operated as a remote-first company since the pandemic.
The goal is to capture even more of the rental market. The Rentable platform is used by millions of renters, especially those under the age of 25, each year. Rentable works with property managers in all 50 states, while the largest markets for Rentable are large cities.
The company said it does an outsized amount of business in Chicago, Dallas, Washington D.C. and Los Angeles.
The company said it was profitable for the first time last year since its founding in 2013. Its revenue nearly doubled year-over-year. Rentable’s primary source of revenue is subscriptions sold to property managers to put listings on rentable, lease properties and receive market intelligence tools.
The company rebranded at the end of 2020, changing its name from Abodo. It is registered with the state as MoveIn Inc.
Rentable has raised more than $34 million to date. Madison-based 4490 Ventures has invested in multiple of the company’s funding rounds. Rentable is an alum of the Milwaukee-based equity accelerator program, gener8tor.