Dwelly Series B raises $170 million for AI-led UK lettings roll-up
Dwelly raised $170 million from EQT Growth, General Catalyst and Trinity Capital to buy more UK letting agencies and automate operations.
By Ingrid Halvorsen · Venture Capital Reporter
· 3 min read
Dwelly has raised a $170 million Series B to keep buying UK letting agencies and move their operations onto its AI platform, a bet that consolidation plus automation can change a fragmented property services market. The Dwelly Series B was led by EQT Growth and General Catalyst, with $95 million in equity and a $75 million debt facility from Trinity Capital; the company did not disclose a valuation.
The equity round also included s16vc, Begin Capital, DVC, KKR’s Philipp Freise and the CEOs of ElevenLabs, Legora and Synthesia as personal investors. Their participation puts AI-sector capital behind a services roll-up rather than another model company or application-layer startup.
London-based Dwelly says it now manages 15,000 properties with a combined rent roll of £350 million. Revenue, profitability and acquisition economics were not disclosed.
What does Dwelly do?
Dwelly buys independent letting agencies, then shifts their day-to-day work onto its own AI system. The company says the platform handles tenant enquiries, onboarding, rent payments, maintenance workflows and compliance tasks, with employees involved where human judgment is needed.
Co-founder and CEO Ilya Drozdov said Dwelly’s operating assumption is that AI should perform operational work, leaving staff to advise landlords and tenants. The productivity claim is central to the pitch: Dwelly says a property manager can oversee more than 300 units after automation, compared with about 100 previously.
Dwelly was founded in 2023 by Drozdov, Dan Lifshits and Dmitry Khanukov. Lifshits and Khanukov previously worked at Uber and Gett, and the founding team had earlier built and sold a 10,000-property rental business in Eastern Europe. Dwelly entered the UK by acquiring Lime Property in Hull rather than starting with a software pilot.
Why are investors backing a lettings roll-up?
Dwelly estimates the UK lettings market includes roughly 20,000 firms and more than £100 billion in annual rent, with the 100 largest firms controlling less than 30% of the market. Savills has put the UK private rented sector at about 5.5 million homes, broadly in line with Dwelly’s market sizing.
The company is pursuing a different route from proptech software vendors such as Arthur Online, which sell tools to agencies that choose whether to adopt them. It also differs from traditional consolidation plays such as Lomond Group, which raised $47.5 million and built a business with more than 190 employees through over 100 acquisitions, while generally preserving agency operating models.
Dwelly’s version of the roll-up requires acquired agencies to use its automation stack. That makes execution risk more concentrated: the company has to buy agencies, integrate teams, satisfy landlords and tenants, and prove its AI systems can handle regulated workflows in a sector overseen in part by Propertymark and other industry bodies.
General Catalyst partner Zeynep Yavuz-Willson, who is joining Dwelly’s board, said the company has changed the tenant process by speeding up answers, viewings and contract signing. EQT Growth managing director Nils Petter Nygaard said the investment reflects a view that agency aggregation alone is no longer enough, and that AI needs to change service delivery.
Dwelly said the new capital will fund more UK acquisitions, further automation in compliance and maintenance, new financial products for landlords and tenants, and expansion into selected European markets. The company also expects to grow from about 300 employees to 1,500 by the end of the year. The round follows a $93 million raise reported five months earlier, bringing total funding to more than $260 million in under a year.
This story draws on original reporting from TechFundingNews.
