The proptech market has been gaining momentum in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region, with startups and companies leading the way in providing many different solutions to the challenges faced by the industry, such as the growing need for the digitalization of the real estate industry, affordable housing, and energy efficiency among others.
Such solutions include online property listings and virtual tours, smart home automation, IoT and property management software. As the demand for real estate tech solutions grows in the CEE region, proptech startups are also aiming to capitalize on the opportunity and transform the way people interact with properties.
In this article, we will explore the potential of 45+ proptech startups across the CEE region and how they are driving innovation in the real estate industry.
The list is just the beginning of our mapping of regional proptech startups so if you have any suggestions please reach us with suggestions at [email protected]
Bulgaria
Name: OfficeRnD
Solution: Office RnD is a co-working and community management software that automates administrative processes. It was founded in 2015 in Sofia to provide a flexible service to office spaces and businesses and help them scale their operations. Today it serves more than 2,000 working spaces in over 60 countries and has employees on 3 different continents. The company also enables people that have chosen to work in shared spaces to access all the services offered by the venue and keep track of their membership plan. They closed a $10M funding round at the end of 2021 to accelerate growth and market share expansion.
Name: InspectHOA
Solution: InspectHOA, a US-based proptech startup with a Bulgarian co-founder that provides a solution that looks to streamline real estate transactions and simplify access to information about homeowners associations (HOA). Last year the company raised a $3.1M seed round led by the American investment firm SVQUAD, with the participation of the US-India early-stage VC Inventus Capital Partners.
Name: FantasticStay
Solution: FantasticStay is a property management startup that develops software allowing vacation rental owners to manage all aspects of their business from a single platform on any device. Last year the startup raised €1.3M in a round led by the Bulgarian VC New Vision 3 (NV3), which invested €770K, in partnership with the angel investor Velizar Velichkov and previous investors.
Name: Propy
Solution: Propy is a California-based startup which was founded in 2015 by Bulgarian entrepreneurs Natalia Karayaneva and Denitza Tyufekchieva with the mission to make real estate commerce more accessible and transparent. The blockchain-based platform helps brokerage companies, clients, and property owners exchange information regarding properties. Clients can also receive, counter, reject or accept offers, while the platform also automates the transactions during a property purchase and supports smart contracts, and reduces the time that is traditionally needed when concluding a deal.
Name: Cowork7/24
Solution: Cowork7/24 is a proptech startup based in Sofia and Istanbul, that offers access to digital nomads, remotely-working professionals, and traveling people access to the most suitable coworking space among 261 flexible offices on two continents. The specially designed city coworking pass of the company gives access to users to all the coworking spaces in Cowork7/24’s network without having to pay extra. The city coworking pass comes with three variations: fan, regular, and ultimate, depending on how many hours of credit a user has.
Name: Estate assistant
Solution: Estate assistant is a cloud-based platform for real estate agencies to help them access and manage their pipeline and deals from multiple devices. The platform offers data hosting – storing of photos and information for various properties, as well as a range of other services, including data synchronization, marketing, and data analysis.
Name: Homeheed
Solution: Homeheed is an AI-powered real estate aggregator that enables users to search for relevant offers for renting or buying a property in the capital of Sofia. The AI-based software constantly aggregates data from real estate websites to provide real-time accurate information about the offerings in Sofia, and has direct integration with more than 100 brokerage agencies that send all their ads directly.
Name: Fitsys
Solution: Fitsys is an integrated solution for managing dermatology clinics, salons, spas, and sports clubs. The platform can manage various business operations, such as the slots for working with customers, internal communication, warehouse, and inventory. The platform helps owners review current resources and account for expenses while enabling employees to track their calendars and accept reservations from clients.
Name: FlatAway
Solution: FlatAway is a Bulgarian startup that provides housing as a service to the remote generation, with a platform that features professionally managed properties that can be rented for flexible periods, and it has a subscription model enabling digital nomads to switch places hassle-free, paying the same monthly rent regardless of the location.
The Bulgarian startup addresses the underserved demand of the multi-billion dollar digital nomad rental market, solving the main problems for landlords: operational hassle, piled-up costs, and time-consuming guesswork involved with utilizing multiple property management software providers and services.
Name: Musketari.bg
Solution: Musketari.bg’s solution aims to simplify the home financing process and make it cheaper for homebuyers, by offering a platform that combines a network of specialists from various fields – bankers, appraisers, brokers and administrative personnel ensure that customers get the best experience when it comes to whole process.
Greece
Name: Blueground
Solution: Blueground is a proptech rental company with a platform where users can book flexible stays (30 days and longer) from a network of thousands of fully furnished, quality homes around the world. The company has so far gathered more than 9,500 apartments present on the website, and over 4,000 corporate clients. Blueground has also managed to raise over $250M in different funding rounds and is a candidate for becoming the next Greek unicorn, while also acquiring proptechs in Latin America, such as the case with Brazilian startup Tabas.
Name: Protio
Solution: The Greek proptech startup looks to solve affordable housing and mitigate the consequences and environmental crisis created by the 220 million buildings in Europe which are more than 20 years old and energy inefficient.The platform allows individual investors to invest in a “Rebuild-to-Rent” property, and property owners to receive an offer for their apartment in just 24 hours.
Name: Flyway
Solution: Flyway offers fully managed second home co-ownership. Based in London and Athens, the Greek startup targets the international second homes market in large cities, known as pied-à-terre, and offers away to buy and own a second home in central city hotspots, and it modernizes the generations-old practice of co-owning a second home, creating a marketplace that makes buying and selling of shares easy. Last year, Flyway raised $10M in seed and debt funding, and plans to use the funding to acquire and sell its first properties in London.
Name: Prosperty
Solution: Prosperty’s solution aims to create a digital-first experience for property owners, buyers, and tenants. Its centralized platform allows for rent and sale transactions of properties, enabling prospective buyers to participate in virtual tours and 3D-assisted presentations. The platform also digitalizes the property identification documents, as well as the online services surrounding the technical, legal, and notary procedures during the real estate transaction. Two years ago, the Greek startup secured €3.3M to expand operations internationally and increase its unique user base that exceeded 100 thousand people on a monthly basis.
Name: GuestFlip
Solution: GuestFlip is an Athens-based startup with a reputation management solution that enables hotels to keep track of their Internet reviews and raise guest satisfaction, increasing their occupancy rates and the number of direct bookings. Using the company’s platform, hotel managements can view customer reviews from over 30 platforms, monitor reputation performance based on segmented analysis that includes more than 200 categories, such as room and breakfast quality.
Name: SensorFlare
Solution: SensorFlare is an IoT startup that enables users to control all the smart devices in a user’s home, no matter if they are produced by different manufacturers. The platform can be accessed from multiple devices to help users manage their smart home devices. Additionally, it analyzes user interactions and proposes intelligence solutions. As of now, SensorFlare has reached agreements with several producers of smart devices for offering the functionality for their devices.
Name: YourHero
Solution: YourHero is a Greek startup that is active in the Home Services industry, and it is currently present on four markets: Greece, Cyprus, Portugal and Ireland. The startup is aiming to disrupt the way customers transact with home services and to allow professionals grow their business. The services listed on their platform vary across categories – home repair and maintenance services, beauty services, auto services, event management, photography and enterprise services. The company closed a €5M investment round at the beginning of the month, which it plans to use for expanding on new markets, product development, as well as launch its B2B segment.
“The Home Services industry has been incredibly resilient in recent years. In my view it will continue to occupy a significant share of customer’s wallet since people are and will continue to spend more time at home, a direct effect from the COVID era. Because of this, they are spending a biggest share in higher-ticket services such as Renovation, Insulation etc.” YourHero’s CEO Andreas Grammatis tells The Recursive.
Romania
Name: Proportunity
Solution: Proportunity is a Romanian-founded UK-based mortgage lends that combines ML and finance to increase opportunities for home ownership. Proportunity’s solution solves house buying affordability challenges by providing equity loans of up €178K (or 25% of the house price), which will add to the maximum mortgage they can get from traditional lenders, enabling buyers to borrow up to six times their income. Merging proptech and fintech, Proportunity has helped finance home purchasing worth more than €77 million so far.
Name: Milluu
Solution: Milluu is a Romanian proptech startup with the goal of helping real estate players digitize their rental processes and save time. Through the platform, business users can present an apartment, schedule visiting hours, sign contracts, secure goods, and pay utility bills. Last year the company raised €700K from VCs and private investors and targeted €200K on the crowdfunding platform SeedBlink.
Name: indexAR
Solution: indexAR is a Timisoara-based startup founded in 2015 by Razvan Boldis, with a solution that targets different markets, like events and product presentations, but also real estate developers. The Romanian startup uses AR to create virtual walkthroughs, so clients can browse their next home.
Name: Bright Spaces
Solution: Bright Spaces is a Bucharest-based startup co-founded in 2019 by Bogdan-Adrian Nicoara, Andrei Constantin, and Ciprian Pasca. Their solution is an interactive platform for clients to showcase office spaces digitally, aided by three design templates, targeting both users that want to interact digitally with a 3D office space and landlords looking for an administrative platform that provides data on closed deals, vacancy, potential customers, and their specific requirements. Last year the company raised €1.5M to accelerate real estate digitalization in CEE.
Name: Apio Digital
Solution: Apio Digital is a Bucharest-based startup co-founded in 2020 by Alexei Adascalita and Bogdan Domide, with a solution that aims to simulate living experiences using design and gamification to turn apartments into 3D homes for future buyers to experience.
Name: Sigtree Technologies
Solution: Sigtree Technologies is a Bucharest-based startup co-founded in 2018 by Vlad Costea, Octavian Cazangiu, and Razvan George Dumitru, with a solution that connects property developers with customers through a digital marketplace.
Name: AiVA
Solution: AiVA is a Cluj-based startup founded in 2020 by Indian entrepreneur Pushkar Chatterji whose international experience includes working for companies in Romania and Sweden. AiVA’s solution aims to create AI tools to monetize CCTV infrastructure by unlocking data that is collected but not used.
Name: GoTiny House
Solution: GoTiny House is a Bucharest-based startup co-founded in 2019 by Vlad Albata, with a solution that creates an international platform where tiny houses are sold around the globe and where members of the community can join forces and develop projects together.
Name: Nooka Space
Solution: Nooka Space is a company based in Ireland, founded in 2020 by Romanian entrepreneurs Mocian Teodora, Alexandru Boghiu, and Adrian Chiruta. Nooka’s solution are smart proximity office spaces for digital nomads or pods for people to work remotely in. The company aims to bring a workspace within walking distance of anyone who needs one and create remote work experiences for communities and customers.
Name: VAUNT
Solution: VAUNT is a Bucharest-based startup co-founded in 2017 by Irina-Alina Constantin and Razvan Mitre. They have built a SaaS management tool with statistics and reports for real estate businesses to save them time. The team aims to scale the startup in Central Europe and the US.
Name: uRADMonitor
Solution: uRADMonitor is a Timisoara-based startup founded in 2015 by Radu Motisan as a hybrid hardware-software innovation tool. The startup’s solution offers a global network of around 500 environmental monitors following the IoT topology to check air quality outside, at home, or in the office.
Poland
Name: Jitiv
Solution: Jitiv is a Polish proptech that helps companies reduce energy costs by monitoring and automating the work of energy consumers. The company’s solution allows up to 40 percent in cost reduction by control, process automation and energy accounting, as well as lower energy costs by reducing the carbon footprint generated during energy production.
Name: Zonifero
Solution: Zonifero is a mobile-first platform created to help companies optimize their resources and improve productivity. The Bialystok-based company has a solution that leverages IoT sensors and smart building integrations and provides a guide to organizations and their offices.
Name: Fream
Solution: Fream is a custom software development startup that specializes in design, development and maintenance of solutions for the Industry 4.0, real estate, transport and retail Sectors.
The Wroclaw-based company solution focuses on integrating new technology, such as wearable tech, biometrics, 360 cameras, virtual and augmented reality, connectivity with hardware devices, with existing client infrastructures.
Name: Velis Real Estate Tech
Solution: Velis Real Estate Tech is a Polish proptech that creates building solutions that automate the management of commercial and industrial properties. The company’s solutions are provided for property and facility managers as well as owners and tenants, and Internet of Things sensors. Its Singu brand offers three main products – Singu Facility Management, Singu Guestbook and Singu Smart Security Desk.
Name: SpaceOS
Solution: SpaceOS is a cloud based SaaS platform for real estate that enables a digital TenantExperience, while offering access to data and enabling commerce. The tenant-facing mobile and web app of spaceOS combines features like community, booking, support, payments, food and beverage orders and a variety of services, compiled into one simple SaaS product.
Croatia
Name: Rentlio
Solution: Croatian cloud-based app Rentlio allows accommodation providers to manage various administrative tasks, including synchronizing bookings across multiple channels like Booking.com, Expedia and Airbnb. The Zadar-based startup’s platform targets vacation rental, hostel and small hotel owners, and aims to allow them to have as much time as possible to focus on their guests while providing them with automated solutions.
Name: InSky Solutions
Solution: InSky Solutions is a Croatian startup that offers a wide variety of customer relationship management and administrative tools aiming at providing clients in the hospitality industry with solutions for management, process automation and optimization, loyalty programs and telephony and messaging.
Name: Crozilla
Solution: Crozilla is the first multilingual real estate platform that offers online advertising of properties in Croatia. Besides real estate, Crozilla also offers vacation rentals.
Name: Robin Croatia
Solution: Robin Croatia is a platform for hybrid work that enables businesses and employees to have an experience which, as the company says, is based on their choices. The Robin platform aims to offer companies the opportunity to keep pace with the growing demand for hybrid work and develop models and solutions such as desk bookings, room scheduling, workplace analytics, community building and more.
Turkey
Name: Missafir
Solution: Missafir’s Property Management System provides listing, management and guest communication on more than 35 platforms. The company’s solution has digitized the whole renting and managing a holiday home experience, while conducting dynamic pricing and full automation among other benefits for homeowners.
The Turkish company also aims to become Europe’s largest short-term/mid-term home accommodation brand by providing extensive services such as furnishing, cleaning, listing, and customer service for homeowners in these destinations. Last month it also acquired Croatian company Golden Leaf Properties and entered the CEE market.
Name: Zingat
Solution: Zingat is a Turkish proptech platform that provides listings of commercial and residential properties along with localized market information, pricing trends and more headquartered in Istanbul, Turkey. Individual agents or corporates who wish to list their properties on the company’s platform can do so by registering online, paying the associated fees and providing information such as description, location, pricing and contact details. Potential buyers or renters can then browse through these listings and choose their property.
Name: Evtiko
Solution: Evtiko is a Turkish proptech that resells residential properties. The Evtiko platform enables users to specify details about their property and receive offers. Using the database and algorithm-based process, the platform evaluates the property and presents an offer within a specified number of days. If the offer is accepted by the seller, the company then presents them with a check on a date chosen by the seller.
Name: Eyurtlar
Solution: Eyurtlar is an online platform that helps students to find properties. The platform enables users to specify a location to find a list of available registered properties, providing information such as address, room features, services/amenities offered and more.
Serbia
Name: Kredium
Solution: Kredium is a Serbian proptech/fintech startup offering real estate and mortgage services in Serbia, the USA, and the UAE. The startup looks to take the experience of buying a home with or without a loan to a higher level and ensures customers get the most favorable conditions on the market. Kredium has been backed by Flat6Labs, the MENA region’s leading seed and early-stage venture capital firm.
Name: City Expert
Solution: City Expert is a Serbian proptech platform that combines creative marketing solutions, design and practical experience in the real estate market to help individuals buy, sell, rent or lease their property.
The platform allows users to go to virtual property viewings. All media presentations have HD photos, 360-degree view, and a video. There is also an interactive floor plan that lets users learn more about the room layout, and it enables them to see how each room looks. The startup has had over 8,000 sold or rented properties in less than 5 years, and has also been supported with an investment by South Central Ventures.
Name: OTA Sync
Solution: OTA Sync is a full property management system with an integrated channel manager and booking engine system. The Serbian startup provides cloud-based property and hotel management solutions. Founded in 2020 in Belgrade, OTA Sync focuses on the region of the East Mediterranean – Albania, Croatia, and Greece. The startup’s plans also include the launching of a support program for all hotels that are eco-certified or turn to sustainable energy sources.
Name: Smart Cat
Solution: Smart Cat is a Serbian AI startup that develops data solutions and functional data strategies for challenging business problems. Based in the city of Novi Sad, the startup has been developing proptech solutions that focus on energy efficiency, such as ones that optimize space occupancy by 90% to algorithms that are reducing electricity consumption and CO2 emissions for 15%. The company’s software is also being used to connect everything from appliances to security cameras into one IoT system.
Ukraine
Name: Prengi
Solution: Prengi is a facility management SaaS startup with a comprehensive system for facility management that has been operating for the last 8 years. It consists of modules that cover all aspects of property management and can replace all these 5 or more tools – starting from primitive ones like paper documents and Excel tables, to advanced but highly specialized tools with narrow functionality.
The startup recently closed a seed round which will see the company expand in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East markets. During the last 6 months, Prengi has expanded to the US, where its potential was recognized by the venture capital group SMRK.
Name: Homsters
Solution: Homsters is an Ukrainian startup that provides automated solutions for marketing and sale of new property developments. The company’s end-to-end marketing platform promotes new developments across multiple online sites, captures buyer leads, nurtures these leads, and distributes closable leads to developer or own sales teams. Homsters’ AI-driven solution is provided on a SaaS basis to online real estate marketplaces and developers in multiple countries. The company was founded in Kyiv, Ukraine, and in November last year it was acquired by Swiss media company Ringier.
Kosovo
Name: Rubik
Solution: Rubik is an investment platform for institutional investors to deploy capital into single family rentals. Founded in 2017 by entrepreneurs Amar Sehic, Krenar Roka, and Tommaso Montagni, Rubik’s platform leverages data science and machine learning to provide proprietary investment opportunities for REITs (real estate investment trusts), hedge funds and family offices in the growing single family rental market. Last year the Kosovo-founded proptech startup closed a $3.5M seed round led by Silicon Valley-based Ulu Ventures.
