It’s not every day that I write about a colleague’s startup. Today, HomeTruth, a home finance tech startup, has emerged from stealth with a $4 million valuation, having graduated from proptech VC STYX’s living lab and an undisclosed initial investment.
HomeTruth addresses a £60 billion UK market plagued by inefficiencies and lack of trusted property data.
The startup is led by fellow Tech.eu journalist and entrepreneur Monty Munford, so we sat down to discuss all things proptech and how his own frustrations as a homeowner inspired him to found a startup.
The biggest purchase of your life has the least transparency
When Munford bought a house in Hastings a couple of years ago, he quickly realised how little reliable information exists for the biggest purchases most people ever make.
The only data he could access was what the seller had originally paid — and by the time he moved in, it became clear that many of the promised renovations, from roof work to underfloor heating, had never been done, and there was no data available to work out what had been done and when. He recalls:
“Between completion and moving in, I discovered that most of what she’d claimed about the home—renovations, the roof, underfloor heating—was untrue. It took me two years to sort it all out.”
During that time, his friend Jason Ryan, visited and asked what he was working on. Munford said,
“Wouldn’t it be amazing if there were a logbook for homes?” Something where a homeowner could say, “Yes, I’m verified,” and show a trusted record of money spent on improvements—£10,000 on solar in 2023, £4,000 on carpets in 2024, and so on. It would create upside for sellers and safety for buyers.”
From navigating insurance to securing mortgages, homeowners face a fragmented ecosystem where transparency is scarce and information is asymmetric.
Munford asserts:
“Buying a home should be a celebration, not one of the most stressful experiences of your life. The process today is archaic and opaque, and it affects the biggest financial decision most people will ever make.
We want to bring accuracy, transparency and truth into that journey—and provide the property industry with the data intelligence it desperately lacks.”
In response, HomeTruth is developing a platform which aggregates public and licensed datasets to build a foundational ledger covering more than 28 million UK homes.
Even at its earliest stages, the startup has been laser-focused on developing a digital solution with commercial viability.
The duo started testing the concept and realised pretty quickly that there was a meaningful gap in the market for this kind of verified data layer. And it went beyond having proof of renovations and building works to gaining insights into how a homeowner could benefit from making changes to their homes that would improve their resale value.
HomeTruth’s AI Advisor puts verified property insights in one place
HomeTruth has developed a platform that engages homeowners through a free HomeTruth AI Advisor, enriching the ledger with consented, ground-truth data while offering proactive insights, secure storage and guidance.
The Advisor helps homeowners understand their home’s true value, risks and opportunities while enriching the data ecosystem for insurers, as every single homeowner inquiry enhances the HomeTruth database.
HomeTruth uses surveyors' reports and energy certificates to forecast the impact of specific improvements on the value of a property.
People typically move every three to five years, so rather than short-term subscriptions, HomeTruth is building something that supports that entire journey. In terms of UX, a user would upload all relevant property documents — energy certificates, land registry information, utility data, renovation records, neighbourhood price changes, and so on.
By sharing their data, homeowners get immediate value: accurate responses, better estimates, and a more transparent experience.
According to Munford,
“HomeTruth exists specifically to avoid hallucination and provide verifiable, property-specific truth.” Users can ask the advisor questions like: “If I spend £8,000 on solar, how does that impact my home value?”
“What are the projected energy bills for the next two years?”
“What should I fix before putting the home on the market?”
They get an instant, tailored, reliable answer."
The real value is the dataset”: How HomeTruth unearthed a massive B2B opportunity
HomeTruth’s turning point came when the team realised that the real breakthrough wasn’t just answering homeowners’ questions—it was the unprecedented dataset those questions created, revealing a far larger B2B opportunity than they initially imagined.
Munford explained:
“We realised that homeowners might ask thousands of questions about their properties — about energy prices, renovation ROI, local price movements — and our LLM could respond in real time based on a mix of verified documents and aggregated datasets.”
“But the real value wasn’t just the answers— it was the dataset generated by millions of these questions. The property-related queries people ask form an extraordinary, real-time window into the housing market.”
This made the startup realise that their market opportunity was a lot bigger than the buyers and sellers themselves — insurers, banks and major stakeholders in the property transaction chain have a far more urgent need for this intelligence than individual homeowners.
“They struggle with opaque risk, outdated valuations and inconsistent documentation. The entire home insurance market, in particular, is fundamentally broken,” asserts Munford.
By combining verified property data with homeowner engagement, HomeTruth provides insurers, lenders and homeowners with accurate and actionable insights. The platform is designed to reduce mispricing, prevent fraud and improve customer experiences across the property ecosystem.
“This is for anyone who needs real-time, high-quality property data to make better decisions. We’re starting with the UK, but the problem is universal.”
HomeTruth is fixing a system-wide data failure
Styx is a European early-stage VC and accelerator focused on PropTech, Smart City and ConTech startups. Styx invests in visionary entrepreneurs reshaping the built environment across Europe. According to Florian Fischer, STYX Co-Founder and Chairman:
“HomeTruth is tackling one of the most complex and opaque experiences in modern life; homeownership. Banks, insurers and homeowners alike are operating in the dark, making decisions on incomplete or outdated data that ultimately leads to mispricing, inefficiency and frustration across the entire sector.
We’re proud to help such an accomplished founding team kick off their venture through the STYX Living Lab.
We look forward to working with Monty and Jason as they transform how homeowners, insurers and lenders engage with property intelligence.”
HomeTruth’s next hires: A CEO and curious builders
In addition, HomeTruth Co-founders Jason Ryan and Monty Munford are looking to bring in curious minds and a CEO who sees the opportunity and wants to fix a broken system with technology that empowers every homeowner in the UK.
Munford admits, “I’m not a CEO — I’m the front man, the storyteller, the connector. Now we need an operator who believes in the mission and can execute.”
From journalist to founder: why experience matters in tech
Munford has had careers across journalism, advising startups, and now founding his own. I wanted to know what’s been the biggest learning curve?
He shared:
“Moving away from being known primarily as a journalist has been a journey. I’ve helped nearly 50 companies raise a combined €1.6 billion over the years, and I’ve always wanted to apply that knowledge to something of my own.
People assume journalists shouldn’t build startups. I disagree — journalists are curious, sceptical, analytical.
Those are incredibly useful traits.
But you need a community that supports you rather than pigeonholes you, and I’ve been lucky to have that.
The biggest lesson is that a lifetime of curiosity and experience absolutely can translate into a meaningful company.”
Lead image: Freepik.
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