Danish proptech Proper eyes European growth, following €3 million seed raise

Proper aims to do for home rental landlords what enterprise software did long ago for sales, bookkeeping and customer relationship management in other services sectors.
Danish proptech Proper eyes European growth, following €3 million seed raise

Proper, a Copenhagen-based startup with hopes to expand across Europe with its software for rental tenancy agreements, just generated €3 million in a seed round of funding led by 14Peaks Capital and Danish VC ALFA Ventures.

The round takes Proper's lifetime score to north of €7.3 million, with further backing from Preseed Ventures and byFounders, along with angel investors such as Kim Baroudy (from McKinsey) and Christian Shin (from EQT Ventures.)

Most landlords will have dealt with stressful tenancies; rent arrears, due diligence checks, disputes over the deposit, are just a few of the big ones.

On the internet, discussion forums offer a place for landlords to exchange advice on managing tenancies, and especially difficult tenants. Yet the home-to-rental market is still to truly experience its Salesforce moment, when its most arduous tasks become fully digitised.

With its tenancy management software, Proper has managed to bring everything a landlord might need into a single place when it comes to making bank transfers, keeping up with the accounts or returning the tenant's deposit at the end of a tenancy. 

Funding secured, Proper is targeting growth in key European markets, such the Netherlands and Germany.

Morten Krarup, Proper's CEO, has credentials in the Danish innovation landscape, previously having served Denmark's branch offices for the startup accelerators Startupbootcamp and New York-based Prehype.

In terms of prop tech, Krarup believes property managers have been slow to adopt digital tools, by comparison to most industries.

"In almost the entire European market we see landlords handling their processes manually, or using IT solutions that were developed in the 90s," Krarup remarked.

Renting is on the rise in some European markets, meaning Proper has plenty of room for business growth if it can scale effectively.

At the moment its software is just available to Danish and Dutch customers, but they'll be joined by German landlords in Q1 '23 and, by 2023-end in non-Denmark markets, Proper hopes to grow lease contracts executed using its software by two-fold.

Anders Dalskov, CEO of ALFA Ventures, said he believes Proper's product could "significantly streamline" rented properties leased out for long periods of time, a key concern as fewer people may be able to buy homes.

"They use modern technological solutions that are already widely used in other industries, but are completely new in the real estate sector," Dalskov said.

"Their platform can be scaled across European markets, making Proper's potential huge. Proper puts the user and the people first, which is exactly what the real estate industry needs."

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