EliseAI Secures $75 Million in Series D Funding, Aiming to Revolutionize Property Management with AI Technology
EliseAI, a trailblazer in AI-driven property management solutions for landlords, has raised $75 million in its Series D funding round, propelling the company's valuation to $1 billion.
Founded by co-founder and CEO Minna Song, EliseAI was born from a collaboration with Tony Stoyanov, whom she met during their undergraduate studies at Cambridge. After graduating, Song relocated to New York City and accepted a role as an administrative assistant at a residential real estate firm.
During her time at the firm, Song became acutely aware of the rampant inefficiencies in the rental and leasing industry—especially in communicating with both current and prospective tenants. “These inefficiencies lead to management exhaustion and burnout,” she noted. “In response, Stoyanov and I developed AI software to automate communication, leading to the establishment of EliseAI in 2017.”
Today, EliseAI harnesses a fleet of sophisticated chatbots to manage interactions with renters. These chatbots communicate via text, email, and calling to assist with inquiries related to apartment tours, maintenance requests, lease renewals, and payment issues. According to Song, the chatbots are trained on a wealth of conversations, enabling them to intelligently address tenant questions and seamlessly escalate requests to human operators when necessary.
“We solely utilize data generated internally,” Song emphasized. “We neither buy nor rely on external data sources, which provides us control over our information acquisition.”
As a privacy-conscious individual, I inquired about EliseAI’s data retention practices. Song confirmed that users can request their data to be deleted, opt out of AI training data collection, and access copies of any information EliseAI holds on them, in accordance with regulations such as the California Consumer Privacy Act. “We do not sell, re-license, or share consumer data for any purpose,” she assured. “Consumer data remains the exclusive property of our customers—property managers or owners—and is used strictly in compliance with customer contracts and applicable laws.”
Some feedback regarding EliseAI's chatbots has been critical, with suggestions that the technology occasionally struggles with nuanced interactions. For instance, one review highlighted that chatbots sometimes fail to engage managers when necessary and might schedule property tours without essential details such as phone numbers or move-in dates. However, Song maintains that EliseAI’s chatbots are continually evolving, boasting an average increase of 125% in lease tour bookings and a 50% reduction in overdue payments based on internal analytics.
“Our technology aims to empower multifamily and single-family rental property owners, operators, and third-party management firms," Song explained. "We focus on enhancing operational efficiency, minimizing tech costs associated with fragmented solutions, increasing occupancy, reducing delinquent payments, and elevating the renter experience.”
In addition to its chatbot functionalities, EliseAI offers a user-friendly dashboard for property managers. This tool allows them to monitor tenant requests such as maintenance work orders, generate operational reports, and track lease renewal progress. The dashboard is included for free with any of EliseAI’s subscription-based AI products.
EliseAI competes against a variety of vendors, including Colleen AI, Funnel, Knock, and LeaseHawk. Currently, the company serves over 350 clients, which includes 70% of the top 50 rental housing operators across the United States.
“We opted against aggressive headcount growth, instead pursuing strategic hiring and sustainable financial management while investing in revenue growth,” Song stated. “Funding remains strong for companies like EliseAI that effectively tackle ongoing enterprise challenges, particularly in essential markets such as housing.”
Following this successful funding round, EliseAI, which employs around 150 full-time staff at its New York City headquarters, is looking to penetrate an unexpected new sector: healthcare. Song believes that a significant portion of the technology can be adapted for health clinics' administrative needs, such as appointment scheduling and billing processes.
Indeed, EliseAI has introduced a healthcare solution in 2023 called HealthAI, which has already gained traction with several providers.
The healthcare market is competitive, though, with startups like Hyro also leveraging AI to facilitate interactions between healthcare organizations and patients.
Led by Sapphire Ventures, the funding round included contributions from Point72 Private Investments, Divco West, Navitas Capital, and Koch Real Estate Investments. This latest round brings EliseAI’s total funding to $140 million. The new capital will be directed towards hiring initiatives, AI research and development, product innovation, and enhancing market strategy.
“Our primary goal was to partner with a strong ally for our business, which is why we selected Sapphire,” Song remarked. Cathy Gao, a partner at Sapphire, will join EliseAI’s board of directors.
“Although EliseAI currently dominates the AI landscape in this sector, the residential real estate market is still at the introductory phase of fully leveraging AI capabilities,” Gao noted. “I believe the company is poised to lead the transformation in housing while achieving similar success in emerging sectors like healthcare.”
Ranking
