Housing startup WYL raises $2.1m in addition to historical $1.1m
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Whose Your Landlord (WYL), a housing startup based in the United States and owned by Nigerians, has raised $2.1 million in pre-seed funding, led by BlackOps Ventures.
Venture capitalist Black Operator Ventures pooled $13 million from investors last year to inject into Black founders, which it has started utilising.
WYL was founded by Ofo Ezeugwu in 2015. It had raised $1.1 million before the latest $2.5 million, bringing its total outlay to $3.6 million in seven years.
Ezeugwu said before launching WYL he had raised capital through brand partnerships with companies.
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BlackOps
BlackOps is looking to invest in Black founders with under investment but who are the biggest arbitrage in tech, according to Nairametrics reporting.
With the new funding, the company intends to expand and increase the quality of its features, by introducing new innovations like using NLPs to find trends in written reviews, to help companies with hundreds of units to better parse incoming feedback which in turn would increase the quality of service it offers.
About WYL
Whose Your Landlord was founded by Ezeugwu with the aim of collecting renter notes about landlord and building quality.
It evolved into collecting renter feedback, uploading it on its website for rental owners, allowing landlords to track how they are performing with customers, how many current tenants intend to stay, and other information they may need.
The tech startup charges customers $2 to use its platform but discounts for those with very large units.
Shuttlers raises $1.6m to digitise African transport
In a related sector, Shuttlers last November raised $1.6 million to expand workers’ mobility options beyond Nigeria to other parts of Africa.
The seed funding round for the tech-enabled scheduled bus sharing firm was led by VestedWorld, an Africa-focused investment outfit based in Chicago, United States.
Other participants included fintech unicorn Interswitch, Rising Tide Africa, EchoVC, Consonance Investment, Five35, Launch Africa, CcHub Syndicate, CMC 21 & Alsa, ShEquity, Sakore, and Nikky Taurus.
After years of bootstrapping, the deal will enable Shuttlers to thrive continentwide as it digitises a transportation system characterised by most people using public transport to commute.