Africa-focused Fintech Solutions Platform, Spleet, has raised $625,000 in an oversubscribed pre-seed round led by MetaProp VC.
The startup was founded in 2018 by Tola Adesanmi. Spleet is especially concerned with building a future where home renting is less stressful and much easier. The startup has established a financial solution that automatically serves as a middle man between landlords and tenants.
Landlords can now use the platform to verify and vet tenants as well as automate rent collections, while individuals and home hunters can search for comfortable living spaces with flexible payment options with less stress and hassle.
Spleet is all so remarkable as it is backed by serial entrepreneur and tech tycoon, Iyin Aboyeji’s Venture Capital firm, Future Africa.
According to the founder, this funding round would be used to build the platform’s newest rent financing product -the ‘Rent Now Pay Later’ and other products he described as facilitators of seamless residential rental processes. Tola also disclosed that the rent financing product is a much-needed solution for tenants due to the soaring cost of buying a home, and the 1-2 years upfront payment that many landlords in Nigeria request from tenants – especially in Lagos.
Speaking about this new product, Tola said: “After launching a marketplace in 2019, we realised that the issues in our rental market were beyond what our marketplace could solve. Affordability is one of the biggest pain points for tenants. Most tenants earn income monthly and can therefore not afford the 1-2 years burden of paying their rent in advance. We decided to change this by building a financing solution, “Rent Now, Pay Later”, to help tenants get homes with as little as 1-2 months’ rent worth of savings. We are currently in beta testing our rent now, pay later product with a select number of tenants, and we are happy with the results. We will extend this to a wider market of tenants and potential tenants in the coming months,”
The Real Estate sector is one that is thriving traditionally in Nigeria and the infusion of technology to this sector is one that hasn’t readily been accepted by many stakeholders. However, Spleet has been positioned to show all the benefits there is for both tenants and landlords to leverage from the platform.
