Ideal Flatmate, the UK’s first flatmate matching site, has seen rapid growth over the past 12 months, passing £1 million in seed funding. It is now experiencing 2,000 properties being uploaded each month by landlords and letting agents with rooms to fill. It also attracts more than 150,000 visitors each month, with flat hunters searching for rooms and looking to ‘buddy up’ using it’s matchmaking tool.
The funding will allow Ideal Flatmate to accelerate its business plan, fast-track its recruitment of key hires, significantly grow the user numbers and advance the implementation of machine learning into the platform.
“This funding is a huge vote of confidence in the business and we are excited to continue building a credible alternative to help Generation Rent find their perfect flatmates. The last 12 months have been an incredible journey and our team have performed remarkably in shaping the product, staying close to our users and making constant improvements to the platform. We can’t wait to increase the speed of our growth and provide London and the UK with the flathsharing platform it deserves,” said founder Tom Gatzen.
The changing nature of the property market and the increased demand are driving the business’ growth. Statistics show that the fastest growing demographic of flatshares is the over 35s, with a 400% rise in the past decade, while the forty-somethings are now almost twice as likely to be renting from a private landlord than they were 10 years ago.
Following years of becoming increasingly frustrated with the lack of options for finding flatmates after searching through current listing websites, founder Tom Gatzen and Rob Imonikhe came up with the idea of Ideal Flatmate.
“The next stage of progression is an exciting one for the business as we deploy our growth strategies over the coming months. This funding round will help us continue to build a strong team and fast-track our drive to onboard more users,” said Imonikhe.
