Breaking Property News 1/6/26
Daily bite-sized proptech and property news in partnership with Proptech-X.
Skoyen Software announces acquisition of Smovin to accelerate European growth of leading property management platform
Skoyen Software, the long-term European investment firm specialising in B2B SaaS businesses, today announced its partnership with Smovin, one of Europe’s fastest-growing property management platforms. The transaction marks Skoyen’s first investment of 2026 and reinforces its strategy of backing exceptional, category-leading software companies for the long term.
Founded in Belgium in 2017, Smovin has rapidly established itself as the system of record and core operational tool for day-to-day property management. Its modern, multi-country platform empowers thousands of users to monitor the performance and efficiency of their portfolios in real time across residential and commercial real-estate assets. It operates in a mission-critical category where roughly 80% of workflows still rely on manual processes or Excel, representing a substantial and largely untapped opportunity for digital transformation.
Smovin enters this partnership with strong momentum and a highly differentiated product proposition. Customers rely on Smovin as a central operating layer for portfolio administration, using the platform to automate critical workflows, reduce manual effort and protect rental income. For a portfolio of 80 units, this translates into approximately 300 hours saved per year. Combined with strong customer economics and a modern cloud-native architecture, these fundamentals give it a defensible competitive moat and an exceptional platform for the next phase of growth.
The transaction provides long-term certainty and a permanent home for Smovin, enabling CEO Grégoire de Donnea and the wider management team who have been leading the business day-to-day to focus fully on the next chapter of growth.
Paul Birks, Co-Founder of Skoyen Software, commented: “We are absolutely delighted to be partnering with Grégoire and the entire Smovin team. From our very first conversations, it was clear that we share the same values and the same long-term, people-first ethos. It has established itself as the leading provider in Belgium, with an outstanding product, a loyal customer base, and a team that has built something truly impressive. Our ambition now is to work closely with Grégoire and his team to build on those strong foundations, supporting them with resources, best practices, and access to our network and growing ecosystem, as we look to scale the business together for the long term.”
Grégoire de Donnea, CEO of Smovin, added: “Smovin has already gone through a deep transformation over the past four years resulting in a profitable and scalable SaaS platform with strong fundamentals. The next step is sustainable growth: expanding internationally, strengthening our product moat through automation and AI, and building a broader European proptech platform. We chose Skoyen Software because they combine long-term capital, deep SaaS expertise, and a partnership mindset aligned with how we want to build the future of the company.”
This change in ownership enables us to pursue more ambitious projects and continue its growth trajectory. Together, we will focus on preserving Smovin’s culture and momentum while empowering the team to move faster and think bigger.
The partnership will deepen Smovin’s market leading position, strengthen the sales and go-to-market engine, and accelerate long-term product development with expanded automation and AI-enabled workflows, building on its strong foundation whilst maintaining the high product quality and customer focus that have defined the company to date.
Skoyen Software acquires and invests permanent capital in B2B SaaS businesses, helping them grow sustainably with a trusted long-term partner. Co-founders Nic Humphries, Executive Chairman of Hg, and Paul Birks bring over 30 years of experience building SaaS champions including Visma based in Skøyen, Oslo, IRIS Software in the UK, and IFS in Sweden. By backing management teams with purpose and autonomy, Skoyen empowers an ecosystem of like-minded businesses to learn and thrive together – offering a genuine, long-term alternative to traditional private equity.
Smovin is a digital platform that allows landlords and property managers to automate recurring tasks related to rental management, such as tracking payments or indexing rents.
Andrew Stanton Executive Editor – moving property and proptech forward. PropTech-X
You May Also Enjoy
Demand for Coastal Living Remains Remarkably Resilient
Buyer demand bounces back after May heatwave
Breaking Property News 11/6/26
Cost of void periods climbs by as much as 53% for landlords
Lack of Supply Keeps Upward Pressure on Rents