UK real estate technology platform Dwelly has raised £69 million ($94 million) in equity and debt funding to expand its AI-driven independent rental agency rollout across the UK.
The capital raising includes a £32m equity round led by General Catalyst, with participation from Begin Capital and S16VC, and a £37m credit facility provided by Trinity Capital. The funding will support further acquisitions as Dwelly seeks to consolidate the UK’s fragmented rental market.
Dwelly operates an AI-powered roll-up model, acquiring independent agencies and integrating them into its technology platform. The UK residential rental market generates more than £100 billion in annual rental income and around £10 billion in commissions, but remains highly fragmented, with around 20,000 companies operating across the country. The top 100 account for less than 30 percent of the country’s 5.5 million rental properties.
Since launching its acquisition strategy in 2024, Dwelly has acquired eight agencies and now manages a gross merchandise value (GMV) of over £200 million. The company says it has managed more than 10,000 properties in less than two years, making it one of the UK’s 15 largest letting agencies.
Co-founder and CEO Ilya Drozdov said the group’s goal is to build an end-to-end rental platform that evolves into a fully transactional marketplace, supported by an integrated fintech layer for rent collection and ancillary services.
Dwelly’s platform automates key phases of the rental process, including tenant screening, contract execution, payments, maintenance coordination, and price adjustments between leases.
The company says its system increases the average number of validated offers per property from one or two in the traditional model to around ten. This has shortened the average rental period by around a third and introduced a more transparent “best offer wins” model that aims to reduce distortion in tenant selection.
Maintenance processes are also automated. Dwelly leverages 24/7 tenant chatbots, automated request triage, and AI-driven maintenance provider tracking. In a sector where resolution of maintenance requests can take up to 50 days, the company says it has already reduced resolution times by 33 percent and expects further reductions.
General Catalyst partner Zeynep Yavuz described Dwelly’s approach as a “system-level AI architecture” capable of transforming one of the UK’s most operationally intensive service sectors into a scalable, software-driven model.
The funding will enable Dwelly to continue acquiring agencies while maintaining their branding and local client relationships, providing agency owners with a transparent exit path.
By increasing the number of properties it manages, Dwelly also gains access to more data to refine its AI models, which it says strengthens an additional advantage in terms of automation and operational efficiency.
As institutional investors show growing interest in the application of AI in traditional service industries, Dwelly’s rapid expansion signals a broader shift in the UK rental market towards consolidation, digital infrastructure and data-driven property management.
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Dwelly secures £69m to accelerate expansion of AI-driven rental market
