NIGERIA – Nigerian prop-tech startup Spleet has raised a US$625,000 pre-seed funding round to help it roll out a new product that provides tenants with affordable loans to help them pay their rent.
The oversubscribed pre-seed round led by MetaProp VC with participation from Future Africa, FEDHA Capital, VFD Group, Moonshot VC, HoaQ, Squarefoot CEO Jonathan Wassersturm, Flutterwave CEO Olugbenga ‘GB’ Taboola, and others.
The funding will be used to build Spleet’s newest rent financing product, “Rent Now Pay, and other products to enable seamless residential rental processes. The new product will give tenants access to affordable loans to pay rent.
Spleet was founded by Tola Adesanmi in 2018 from the need to find rentals with flexible payment options in Lagos as opposed to the usual one or two-year upfront payment options.
The startup allows homeowners to rent to vetted individuals, while also helping people easily find places to stay.
The startup additionally enables landlords to verify and vet tenants and also automates rent collections.
“After launching a marketplace in 2019, we realized that the issues in our rental market were beyond what our marketplace could solve,” said Adesanmi.
“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.”
The platform also allows tenants to get homes with as little as 1-2 months’ rent worth of saving through its solution, “Rent now pay later”.
Spleet currently is in beta testing the newly introduced Rent now pay later product. It plans to extend the services to a wider market of tenants and potential tenants in the coming months.
The startup launches its solutions at a time when the West African country has a housing deficit of 22 million houses according to the World Bank.
Nigeria’s population of over 200 million and a high growth rate of about 5 million per year pose a significant threat to housing facilities that already exist and those under construction and planning.
As a way forward the Nigerian lawmakers are considering a bill that calls for rent to be paid monthly instead of once a year to ease the financial burden on tenants.
In addition, the government is trying to provide 1 million affordable housing every year to curb the growing demand.
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