l am proud to announce that we have raised $53 million in Series B funding led by LL Funds with other new and existing investors. This marks another milestone for Poplar as the fresh funding will pave the way for us to speed up growth and strengthen our leading role in the future of property management.
In 2014, we were one of the first proptech companies to embark on a brave venture. That is to disrupt the traditional ways in real estate industry and transform the $100 billion fragmented industry of single-family rental (SFR) management with our tech-driven platform. Our mission was to provide a better and painless renting experience to homeowners and renters. Seven years and 7,500 doors later, we continue to deliver that promise. Poplar Homes is now in a period of hypergrowth at the epicenter of the rapidly developing SFR landscape. This year, our operations will facilitate over $200 million in rent volume and thousands of maintenance requests.
What We’ve Accomplished So Far
We have expanded our market reach through acquisitions in high-growth markets. We take it as a demand call to bring our services where needed. Since our inception, we have made nine acquisitions of property management companies in multiple locations across the country. Poplar is now present in 13 metro areas across seven states, serving more than 2,500 owners and 12,000 renters. We plan to continue leveraging strategic acquisitions to drive our growth strategy.
We have also made a series of strategic hires of industry experts to join our executive team. We want to assure our customers that only the best leaders in the real estate field lead Poplar. Among them is Travis Buchanan as Chief Operating Officer, Justin Lieberknecht as Vice President of Marketing (both formerly from American Homes 4 Rent), Carolyn Landis as Executive Vice President of Corporate Development, Michael Lee as Vice President of Product (formerly from John L. Scott Seattle Northwest), and Scott Breon as Chief Strategy Officer (formerly of Vacasa).
Where We Are Heading
We plan to expand our presence in more market areas in 2022. We do this by going all out in our ambitions to innovate and create a wide range of tech-forward investment products.
With that, we have set our plans on these priorities:
Growing the Poplar Team
We are adding more bright minds to our current 270 team count. We are actively hiring across all roles — engineering and product, marketing, sales, analytics, and operations. We are also building out Poplar Home Services, a team for full-coverage maintenance for all services a homeowner might need.
Bringing More Industry Solutions to Market
We are enhancing the use of our platform in the simplest way possible. This is to enable our homeowners to monitor their rental portfolio and the local teams that service their properties in real-time.
Developing Products and Services to Optimize Portfolio
We plan to grow our suite of services to owners to include advanced property analytics and financial services. We will expand into other forms of real estate management services similar to our StreetCred program for renters.
Strategic Mergers and Acquisitions
With a larger team and better service offerings, we are now more confident in taking on additional strategic acquisitions to expand our footprint in the property management space.
Empowering the Homeowners
For all individual “mom and pop” property owners who own 99% of the 16 million SFR in the United States, we continue to make managing a rental property as easy as managing stocks online.
About 67% of our customers belong to this investor type and were independent, do-it-yourself (DIY) landlords. They found it hard to scale their business without some form of help; the DIY approach could only mean more stress and possible mismanagement along the way. They were unable to gain access to technologies used in the rental space because they were available only to institutional investors. So we stepped in and changed all that, making rental management convenient and painless for them.
With technology, we are adding more power to our platform to help everyday property owners improve their rental performance through efficient and cost-effective property marketing, on-demand services, guaranteed rent payouts, and 24/7 maintenance support.
Balanced Power Dynamics for Renters
We continue to assist renters’ search for the house they desire with ease and flexibility. We help them save time and money by presenting them with Poplar homes that are habitable and up-to-code in our easy-to-use platform. Wherever they are at any time of the day, they can view homes and access virtual tours, book a showing, and even sign a lease online. They can also count on our highly responsive maintenance support to make quick troubleshooting and home fixes when necessary. Keeping renters happy in their homes improves the retention rate and boosts investment performance.
Final Thoughts
Single-family rentals are an increasingly valuable asset, and Poplar is leading the way in bringing institutional operating power to small, independent real estate investors. With the resources we now have, the possibilities are exciting and endless. We will continue to take on new challenges as we promise to deliver top-notch real estate services for residential properties. Through our custom-based technology, we will shape the future of long-term rentals to benefit our customers.
Cheers to this proud moment!
Recent Comments