A new South African tech startup, reOS has just launched and aims to assist rental professionals with the management of commercial properties.
The startup assist landlords to digitally manage their monthly tasks such as collecting rent and scheduling payments
Craig Buckley, managing director of reOS, told Ventureburn that the startup has managed to raise more than R12-million in the last 18 months in seed funding and has plans to raise more funding in early 2021.
Solving challenges in the rental industry
reOS saw a gap in the market that needed to be addressed, providing a solution for landlords to manage their commercial properties effectively.
Buckley explained that most landlords have not employed a professional to manage their rental property which often caused them to fall behind in terms of customer services. He added that privately rentals are often seen as a last resort.
He added that similar “tech-enabled disruptors” who have tried to solve this issue have been unable to offer a suitable management solution to landlords. According to Buckley, these startups have focused on cheaper DIY tools that don’t compare to services that are offered by qualified rental agents.
“More importantly, we realised that there is an ‘iceberg’ of transactional, financial, and customer complexity that newcomers to the industry fail to appreciate (until too late) and that seasoned rental professionals have been grappling with for years,” said Buckley.
He further stated that these challenges inspired the idea of using the best disruptive, automation, and tech principles to assist agents to manage their businesses more efficiently.
Development of reOS
The process of development of the startup has taken nearly 10 years, in order to address all the critical issues faced in the rental industry.
Three years ago the startup had begun experimenting with a D2C solution for rentals and this was what convinced Buckley and his team to focus on providing a “game-changing” solution.
“The development process has been a slow and steady one. The platform has been operational for the better part of a year, although we have kept it in beta and on an invite-only basis,” said Buckley.
The biggest hurdle in the development of the platform has been ensuring that there were no mistakes in their system.
“When one is dealing with a fully transactional system, we’ve always believed that ‘slow is steady and steady is fast’. Errors aren’t really an option!” said Buckley.
Last month, the reOS platform was a soft launch and has become available on the professional market.
Services offered by reOS
The startup assists their clients to run their businesses more effectively by automating more than 60% of the monthly tasks. The platform also provides auto-reconciliation of funds received and handles the scheduling of outgoing payments.
Its platform is completely cloud-based which allows its clients to have access at any time and anywhere. The platform also includes security protocols to ensure that their client’s data is safe and secured.
“reOS enables our clients to run better businesses. It saves time and energy by automating repetitive tasks – like customer communication and money-management – which they can invest in relationships and growing their books,” said Buckley.
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Feature image: Erik Mclean via Unsplash
