Evan Haddad

@evan_haddad88

Nooklyn has secured a sizable investment that will allow the company to expand its operation on all fronts — and into Manhattan — according to an announcement yesterday.

The Brooklyn-based real estate tech startup announced the close of a $825,000 seed investment round which will help the company get a shoe into the largest housing market in the United States (Manhattan) and build up its software to make that possible. Patoma, a firm specializing in Brooklyn multi-family development and early stage tech investments, led the investment, the statement said.

Nooklyn plans to expand its engineering, design, and data teams to build a digital leasing product for renters, roommates, and property owners, the annoucnement said. All of those things will be needed to accommodate potentially thousands of new clients and the website traffic boom that would occur whenever the company enters the Manhattan market. It’s still not clear when that will happen — or if Nooklyn will change it’s name to “Manooklyn.” Just kidding.

“We’ve spent the last two years building a digital leasing platform. Now we’re going to start opening up the platform, so anyone can post an apartment or room and find renters or roommates,” Moiz K. Malik, CFO at Nooklyn added.

Since launching the original online leasing platform in 2015, Nooklyn has helped 25,000 renters move, processed $40m in rental payments, and has over 250 real estate agents working exclusively for the startup. Around 49,000 renters use the Nooklyn platform every month. 

“Our mission is to fix the experience of finding apartments,” said Harley Courts, CEO and co-founder of Nooklyn. “We’ve found great people who share our mission and the desire to build a lasting company.”

Nooklyn was originally founded in 2010 as a daily blog to help renters find apartments and rooms. Nooklyn’s first product, Rooms & Mates, is the leading roommate finder in Brooklyn. Nooklyn is also the largest rentals company in Brooklyn.

Cover image courtesy of Google Maps