Dwelly Raises £69M Led by General Catalyst to Revolutionize the UK's Fragmented Rental Market with AI

The United Kingdom's rental property market has long been described as one of the most inefficient and fragmented sectors in the country's economy — and for good reason. With over 20,000 independent letting agencies scattered across England, Scotland, and Wales, the sector has struggled to modernize at the pace that both landlords and tenants now demand. Manual processes, slow maintenance workflows, and limited tenant-matching capabilities have continued to plague the industry for decades. That is beginning to change, however, as a new wave of AI-powered proptech companies starts to reshape what the rental experience looks like from the ground up. The latest and most significant signal of this change comes from Dwelly, a London-based AI lettings platform that has just secured a landmark £69 million in funding, a move that places the company at the very forefront of AI funding news in the UK proptech space.

This substantial capital raise, led by one of the world's most respected venture capital firms, underscores a growing conviction among investors that artificial intelligence is not just a buzzword in real estate — it is a genuine operational revolution waiting to happen. For those tracking AI funding trends globally, Dwelly's fundraise is a clear indication that proptech is entering a new chapter, one where consolidation and intelligent automation go hand in hand to deliver outcomes that were previously unimaginable for an industry this traditional.

The £69M Funding Round: What It Includes and Who's Backing Dwelly

Dwelly's total funding package of £69 million is structured in two distinct components, both of which reflect the company's dual strategy of aggressive market acquisition and technological development. The first is a £32 million equity round, which was spearheaded by General Catalyst, a heavyweight in the global venture capital arena with a portfolio that spans some of the world's most transformative technology companies. Joining General Catalyst in this equity round were Begin Capital and S16VC, two investors with strong track records in backing high-growth technology startups across Europe and beyond.

The second component is a £37 million debt facility provided by Trinity Capital, a specialized lender known for supporting growth-stage companies that require capital to execute on acquisition-led growth strategies. This debt facility is not incidental — it is central to Dwelly's business model. Unlike a pure software startup that grows through organic user acquisition, Dwelly has made agency acquisitions a cornerstone of its expansion plan. The debt facility provides the financial firepower needed to acquire independent letting agencies across the UK at scale and speed, integrating them under Dwelly's unified AI-powered platform. This combination of equity and debt in a single round reflects sophisticated capital structuring, and in the broader context of AI funding news, it signals that investors are comfortable backing companies that blend technology with M&A-led growth strategies.

General Catalyst's decision to lead this round is particularly noteworthy. The firm has an established history of identifying category-defining companies early and supporting them through transformative growth phases. Its involvement lends considerable credibility to Dwelly's vision and increases the company's profile in a competitive European proptech landscape.

The Founders: Uber, Gett Veterans Bringing Operational Expertise to Proptech

One of the most compelling aspects of Dwelly's story is the pedigree of the founding team. The company was co-founded by three experienced entrepreneurs who each bring deep operational expertise from some of the world's most prominent technology-driven businesses, giving Dwelly a unique advantage that goes beyond just capital and technology.

Ilia Drozdov, who serves as a key figure in the company's leadership, previously held the role of General Manager at Uber. But his connection to the rental market runs deeper than just his tech background — he also co-founded a rental agency that managed an impressive portfolio of 10,000 apartments, giving him firsthand knowledge of the pain points that landlords, tenants, and agencies face on a daily basis. This combination of tech scalability thinking and real estate operational experience makes him particularly well-suited to lead a company that sits at the intersection of both worlds.

Dan Lifshits, another co-founder, brings equally impressive credentials to the table. As the former General Manager at Gett — the on-demand transportation company — he was responsible for overseeing a business generating £200 million in gross merchandise value. His experience in scaling marketplace businesses and managing high-volume transactional platforms is directly relevant to Dwelly's mission of building a high-volume, AI-assisted lettings marketplace.

Completing the founding trio is Dmitry Khanukov, who was responsible for leading Uber's technology operations across EMEA recruitment systems. His deep technical background and experience building scalable infrastructure for one of the world's largest tech companies provides Dwelly with the engineering leadership needed to build and maintain a sophisticated AI platform capable of handling tens of thousands of property transactions simultaneously. Together, the three founders represent a rare convergence of tech, operations, and real estate expertise — a founding team that investors and industry observers alike have pointed to as one of Dwelly's most important competitive assets.

How Dwelly's AI Platform is Transforming the Lettings Process

At the heart of Dwelly's proposition is its AI platform, which has been built to automate and optimize virtually every step of the lettings process — from tenant matching and property verification to maintenance management, rent collection, and dynamic pricing adjustments. To understand why this matters, it is important first to appreciate just how broken the current system is.

In the traditional letting agency model, a landlord with a property to rent out can typically expect to receive just one or two offers from prospective tenants. The process of verifying tenants, drawing up contracts, and arranging viewings is largely manual and time-consuming. When maintenance issues arise, the average resolution time stands at around 50 days — an absurdly long timeline for what are often relatively straightforward repairs. Most small agencies do not use modern software tools and continue to rely on spreadsheets, phone calls, and paper-based processes to manage their portfolios. This is the operational reality that Dwelly has set out to fundamentally change.

Dwelly's AI system, once integrated with an acquired agency, automates the entire rental workflow. One of its most striking capabilities is in tenant matching: where a traditional agency might generate just one or two verified offers per property, Dwelly's platform generates up to ten verified offers per property. This dramatic improvement in matching efficiency means that properties are let more quickly, landlords have more choice, and tenants are more likely to find a home that meets their needs. The platform has also been shown to cut letting times by approximately one third — a significant improvement that has tangible financial benefits for landlords who no longer face extended void periods.

On the maintenance side, Dwelly has deployed 24/7 AI-powered chatbots that handle tenant maintenance requests around the clock. These chatbots do not just log requests — they triage, prioritize, and coordinate resolutions in a way that has already resulted in a 33% improvement in maintenance resolution speeds. The company is targeting a 70% or greater improvement as the platform continues to mature and accumulate more operational data. Beyond matchmaking and maintenance, the AI system also handles tenant verification, contract generation, payment processing, and automated rent adjustments based on real-time market data — creating a truly end-to-end digital lettings operation that operates with minimal human intervention.

What makes Dwelly's AI particularly powerful is its data flywheel effect. As the company acquires more agencies and onboards more properties, it generates more data. More data, in turn, makes the AI smarter and more accurate, which improves outcomes for landlords and tenants, which attracts more agencies to join the platform. This self-reinforcing cycle gives Dwelly a significant long-term competitive advantage that becomes more durable with each passing month. In the context of AI funding and investment trends, this kind of defensible data moat is exactly the type of structural advantage that sophisticated investors like General Catalyst look for when making large funding commitments.

Dwelly's Acquisition Strategy and the Road to Market Leadership

Since launching its acquisition strategy in 2024, Dwelly has moved quickly and decisively. The company has already acquired eight independent letting agencies and now manages a portfolio of more than 10,000 properties with a combined gross merchandise value of £200 million. For a company that is still in its relatively early stages of growth, these are remarkable numbers — and they speak to both the appetite among independent agencies to be acquired and integrated, and to Dwelly's ability to execute on its acquisition strategy at pace.

The acquisition model itself is thoughtfully designed to reduce friction and incentivize participation. Dwelly takes a deliberate approach to preserving the brand identity of the agencies it acquires, a strategy that helps maintain trust with existing landlords and tenants who may have long-standing relationships with their local agency. Rather than forcing an abrupt transition to the Dwelly brand, the company allows acquired agencies to continue operating under their existing names while quietly integrating the AI platform beneath the surface. This approach reduces churn and ensures continuity of service during what could otherwise be a disruptive transition period.

Dwelly also operates under a clear and transparent "best offer wins" framework when it comes to pricing and terms for acquisitions. This removes ambiguity from the M&A process and makes it easier for agency owners — many of whom are approaching retirement or looking to exit — to make straightforward decisions about whether to sell. The combination of brand preservation, transparent deal terms, and the genuine operational improvements that Dwelly's AI delivers creates a compelling value proposition for independent agency owners who want to ensure their business continues to thrive under new ownership. Looking ahead, the company has set ambitious targets: it aims to be among the top 15 letting agencies in the UK within just two years, a goal that will require continued aggressive acquisition activity alongside ongoing platform development. The newly raised £69 million in AI funding will be instrumental in making that vision a reality.

What's Next: Building a Full Marketplace and Expanding Fintech Services

The £69 million raised in this latest round is not simply going to be deployed into more acquisitions, though that remains a core priority. Dwelly has laid out a broader strategic roadmap that envisions the platform evolving from a technology-enabled lettings aggregator into a full-scale marketplace that connects landlords, tenants, and service providers in a seamless digital ecosystem. This evolution would position Dwelly not just as an agency consolidator, but as the operating system of the UK rental market — a significantly more valuable and defensible business than any single agency or PropTech tool could be on its own.

A key part of this next phase involves the expansion of Dwelly's fintech services. Rent collection is already a feature of the platform, but the company sees significant opportunity in building out a broader suite of financial products tailored to the needs of landlords and tenants. This could include insurance products, flexible deposit schemes, buy-now-pay-later options for tenants facing upfront costs, and yield optimization tools for landlords managing multiple properties. By layering financial services on top of its lettings infrastructure, Dwelly can increase revenue per property and per user while also deepening the stickiness of its platform relationships. For landlords especially, having a single platform that manages both the operational and financial dimensions of property letting represents a powerful value proposition that traditional agencies simply cannot match.

The broader AI funding landscape provides important context for why Dwelly's strategy resonates so strongly with investors right now. Across the UK and Europe, AI-powered companies that are disrupting legacy industries with high transaction volumes and fragmented supplier landscapes are attracting significant venture capital attention. From healthcare to logistics to legal services, the pattern is consistent: AI funding is flowing disproportionately to companies that are not just building tools, but fundamentally reorganizing how entire industries operate. Dwelly fits this pattern perfectly. It is not building a chatbot for letting agencies — it is rebuilding the UK lettings industry from the ground up, using AI as the connective tissue that makes the whole thing work. As AI funding news continues to highlight transformative deals in 2026, Dwelly's £69 million round stands out as one of the most strategically coherent and well-timed investments in the European proptech space.