The startup that helps tenants find premium apartment rentals in South Korea has closed over 20 billion KRW in equity and debt. The Series A funding brings the total funding raised to over 40 billion KRW.
NFX, Daol Investment, Hana-Magna, Hana Financial, MetaProp, Fursy, Han River Partners, Flybridge and Maple are investors. The equity financing was co-founded by WeWork co-founder Miguel McKelvey.
Matthew Shampine and Insong Kim founded the company in 2020.
After leaving WeWork, Shampine said he wanted to work on something meaningful. Shampine knew that residential real estate was big in South Korea, but he didn't know much about proptech. Matthew set up meetings to talk to industry people in the local residential real estate, proptech, and startup space.
I had worked with Adam on the early planning for WeLive, which sparked an interest in residential, and real estate had been my life for the last ten years.
South Korea's unique residential rental system allows tenants to rent an apartment at no or little monthly payments.
The housing deposits for premium apartment rentals are 98%. Shampine said that the company works with landlords to provide premium apartments to renters with a low deposit and fixed monthly rent.
Tenants can access home services such as the appliance and furniture rentals, internet/cable and scheduled recurring. It offers 3D virtual tours of its units powered by Matterport, and the renters can sign the lease via e-contract.
We want to make great homes accessible and affordable to people in Korea. Almost all rental properties have a high deposit, with less than one percent of units having a deposit of less than $16K.
More than 60 of the top apartment complexes in South Korea are managed by the same company.
Korean proptech startup Dongnae gets $4.1M seed extension led by NFX
The startup pivoted the business in late July of 2021.
The company no longer has an external listings platform because all apartments listed on its website are homes managed by Dongnae. The team's size has doubled. According to Shampine, the company has more than 80 official local partners.
Shampine said that their offering is much closer to a fintech platform that helps customers access managed, premium apartments across the city with a significantly lower deposit.
Most of the users are young professionals working in the city, according to Shampine. The number of foreign customers is increasing as Korea eases restrictions on Covid.
Shampine said its offering is ideal for foreign business executives and diplomats because of the low housing deposits and difficulties of moving large amounts of currency across borders. The resident management service in Korean, English, Chinese, and Japanese appeal to foreigners moving to Korea.
With the Series A proceeds, the firm plans to accelerate geographic expansion across the Seoul metropolitan area, bolster its relationships with local brokerages and invest in technology and data to build out its proprietary tools for users.
Dongnae raises $4.1 million to digitize real estate in South Korea
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