London-based Dwelly secures over €79.3 million to scale AI-driven rental marketplace
Dwelly, a London-based property management platform acquiring and digitising independent letting agencies, has secured over €79.3 million (£69 million) in combined equity and debt funding to accelerate its expansion across the UK.
The raise includes a €36.8 million equity round led by General Catalyst, with participation from Begin Capital and S16VC, alongside a €42.55 million debt facility from Trinity Capital. The fresh capital will support a continued series of acquisitions in what remains one of the UK’s most fragmented service sectors.
Founded in 2024, Dwelly operates an AI-enabled rollup model, acquiring independent rental agencies and integrating them into a unified technology platform. The company aims to streamline the entire letting lifecycle, from tenant-landlord matchmaking and maintenance coordination to rent collection and pricing optimisation.
Consolidating a fragmented £100 billion market
The UK letting market generates over €115 billion in rent roll and approximately €11.5 billion in annual commissions. Yet it remains highly labour-intensive and administratively complex. Around 20,000 firms operate across the country, with the top 100 accounting for less than 30% of the roughly 5.5 million rental properties nationwide.
In less than a year of M&A activity, Dwelly has acquired eight agencies across the UK and now manages over €230 million in gross merchandise value. The company says it offers agency owners competitive valuations and clear deal structures, while preserving existing brands and client relationships post-acquisition.
Following each acquisition, Dwelly integrates its AI-enabled operating system to automate key functions, reduce manual workload and standardise service quality. As the portfolio grows, the company leverages aggregated operational data to further train and refine its AI models.
“We have crossed 10,000 properties under management, placing Dwelly among the UK’s top 15 largest letting agencies in less than 2 years – an unseen speed of growth for letting agencies. Our vision is to build an end-to-end platform evolving into a fully transactional rental marketplace with a robust fintech layer for rent collection and ancillary products,” said Ilya Drozdov, co-founder and CEO of Dwelly.
“AI is shaking up industries. The UK’s letting market is the perfect target for AI to simplify operations, boost tenant satisfaction, and skyrocket agent output. Dwelly leverages AI to supercharge agency performance and empower staff with smart tools, streamlining landlord-tenant-agency interactions for better efficiency and customer experience,” said Dan Lifshits, co-founder and CPO of Dwelly.
Reworking matchmaking and maintenance
Dwelly’s platform applies AI across each stage of the rental journey. Beyond listing properties, it supports background verification, contract execution, payments, in-tenancy maintenance management, move-outs and dynamic repricing.
According to the company, its system enables applicants to generate an average of 10 validated offers per property, compared to the one or two typically received via traditional agencies. It also reports a one-third reduction in letting times, aiming to create a more transparent “best offer wins” model.
On the property management side, Dwelly deploys 24/7 tenant chatbots, automated request sorting and structured communication with maintenance providers. In a market where maintenance requests reportedly take around 50 days on average to resolve, the company claims to have reduced this timeframe by 33% so far, with ambitions to cut it by more than 70% as the system matures.
“Dwelly is transforming one of the UK’s most fragmented and operationally demanding service sectors into a modern, AI-powered system. Their platform converts thousands of analogue, agency-level processes into scalable software, improving tenant experience, landlord economics, and agency efficiency all at once. We believe this combination of deep industry expertise, disciplined execution, and a systems-level AI architecture positions Dwelly to reshape how rental markets operate. It’s exactly the kind of enduring, technology-led transformation General Catalyst is committed to backing,” said Zeynep Yavuz, Partner at General Catalyst.
The post London-based Dwelly secures over €79.3 million to scale AI-driven rental marketplace appeared first on EU-Startups.
