SplitSpot, a Boston proptech company offering flex-lease room rentals, announced this week it has raised $2 million in fresh funding. The investment was co-led by York IE and One Way Ventures, and will be used to expand the company’s geographic footprint and grow its team, with a focus on tech and operations roles.
Co-founders Ernesto Gaxha and David Mazza launched SplitSpot in 2019 as a way to make renting easy. They noticed how complicated renting a place in a city like Boston was — bogged down by brokers’ fees, inflexible leases and high costs — and decided to create something that could “untangle” the whole process.
Put simply, SplitSpot does this by acting as an intermediary between landlords and tenants. Landlords post their unoccupied rooms on the site, which potential renters can browse according to things like price and location. Then, once they find something they like, users can virtually tour the space, complete a background check, meet their roommates and sign the lease all through the SplitSpot platform. There are no broker fees, just a $400 security deposit. And the leases aren’t the typical 12 months, which allows renters to be more flexible.
“We understood the complexity behind the rental market and saw room for improving the process in an innovative way for both landlords and tenants,” Gaxha said in a statement. “We’re excited to continue tackling the massive problem of unaffordable and inaccessible housing in major cities. With these new resources, we will be able to expand SplitSpot into more metro areas across the country, and expand our reputation as an easy, reliable and trusted renting solution.”
Today, SplitSpot claims to be the largest room rental platform in the city. With more than 500 rooms in the greater Boston area, it has experienced 3x year-over-year growth over the last two years. Going forward, Marshall Everson, an executive at York IE, says the company is “poised for explosive growth.”
“SplitSpot is changing the industry of renting, a market that is ripe for disruption,” Semyon Dukach, a managing partner at One Way Ventures, added in the news release. “We are incredibly impressed with how SplitSpot understands their market, the opportunity ahead, and how they can shake up the rental space as we know it.”
