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Developer Quintain has bought a stake in London rental app Movebubble, a move it hopes will spread the word about build-to-rent residential property to a wide audience.
Quintain, which is developing the UK’s largest build-to-rent scheme with more than 5,000 rented homes at Wembley Park, has taken a 10% stake in Movebubble. Movebubble has raised £3.2M of investment so far, according to Crunchbase, and Quintain is its first institutional investor.
It marks a return to the tech investment sector for Quintain. It had previously bought fibre optic broadband service Velocity 1, and sold a majority stake in the company to telecoms firm Magnet Networks. The service is in place at Wembley Park.
Movebubble is an app aimed specifically at London renters that allows them to find properties and communicate with potential landlords and agents, with a design and functionality that is reminiscent of Airbnb. It has so far been downloaded by more than 300,000 users, out of a potential cohort of 2 million London renters.
Quintain said that part of the thinking behind its investment was alerting potential renters about the existence of the professionally managed, institutionally backed build-to-rent sector, something that has never existed in the UK before.
The investment and resulting working relationship between the organisations will enable Movebubble to further develop Movebubble One, a product developed specifically for the BTR market, the companies said. Utilising its knowledge and access to renter behavioural data, Movebubble said it is better able to drive demand directly for its partners in the BTR sector.
“The sector needs platforms such as Movebubble to expand, succeed and connect directly with the renting population in the UK,” Quintain Executive Commercial Director Rajesh Shah said.
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