Startmate alumni Happy Inspector has outlined its plans after partnering with Queensland-based business Rent Resumé, in its digital bid to shake up the real estate industry.
Happy Inspector, founded by Jindou Lee, Philip Mayes and Andrew Mackenzie-Ross, is a property inspection app to help automate property inspections.
In January, Happy Inspector was chosen as one of eight start-ups to participate in the 2012 program of Startmate.
Then in September, it raised funding from a group of angel investors in addition to 500 Startups, after participating in the US-based 500 Startups program. The funding was less than $1 million.
Now, Happy Inspector has announcement a partnership with Rent Resumé, which aims to make it easier for retail tenants to secure their next property.
By tracking the rental history of its members, Rent Resumé members stand out from the crowd when applying for a rental property. This, in turn, allows property managers to provide a better service to landlords.
The next version of the Happy Inspector app will incorporate a feature to allow a “one-touch” upload of information to the Rent Resumé database.
This will hopefully result in a seamless process for property managers, a better service for landlords and a higher quality rental history for Rent Resumé members.
“We’ve joined forces with Rent Resumé to improve the functionality of our product and assist spreading the word about the benefits of Happy Inspector for property managers,” Lee says.
According to Rent Resumé chief executive Darren Smith, the partnership will enable his business to enhance its offering.
“Integrating with the Happy Inspector platform will facilitate the automatic collection of data and ultimately lead to higher quality rental histories for our members,” Smith said in a statement.
Lee says Rent Resumé approached Happy Inspector after it appeared on the ABC earlier in the year.
“What we saw was they were finding something really good for renters… For us, it’s about making sure everyone wins, from the property manager to the tenants,” he says.
“We thought it could be really good for what we were doing.”
After raising funds, Happy Inspector was able to grow its team, which in turn has allowed it to build additional features.
Happy Inspector now employs about 15 people. The engineering team is based in Australia while other staff are based in the United States, which, as Lee explains, is the company’s key focus.
“The areas we’re looking at include California because that’s where we’re based. The eastern states are another huge part and then the south – Texas I guess,” he says.
“Our key focus is really getting more customers… We know what we’re building and our next version is exactly what people want. It’s just a matter of how do we distribute it.”
Happy Inspector hasn’t ruled out raising further rounds of funding, but doesn’t appear to be in any hurry.
“Raising the funds shouldn’t be too hard based on the traction we have but I don’t know how soon that will be,” Lee says.
