LiFE Residential embrace PropTech with the launch of new investment arm

October 3, 2017

Leading London estate agency LiFE Residential is excited to announce the official launch of LiFE Ventures, a new investment arm of the business to support early stage start-ups in the property sector. LiFE Ventures acts as a micro fund, offering seed investment and an incubator programme to early stage start-ups, concentrating mainly on PropTech.

LiFE Ventures’ most recent investment has been to the UK-based company KeyNest, a start-up set on eliminating the hassle caused by collecting and depositing keys.

KeyNest solves the pain point of time-wasting and insecure key handovers between different user groups such as host and guest, agent and tenant or contractor, busy residents, and cleaners. With KeyNest, keys can be dropped in any of its partner locations, and then securely picked up by providing a single-use code. KeyNest’s software also allows to track all keys in real-time, whether they are inside the office or outside with a guest or staff member.

KeyNest launched in June 2016 with 10 partner locations in London and has quickly expanded to over 100 locations across the country.

LiFE Ventures, the investment division of LiFE Residential, believe the venture will further strengthen KeyNest’s expertise in the serviced accommodation and real estate sector and help LiFE with future key transactions.

“KeyNest has already proven its huge value-add to serviced apartment operators. We are investing because key management and key exchanges sometimes can be challenging for estate agents – something KeyNest can finally solve. We are confident that lost keys and expensive key exchange processes will be a thing of the past thanks to KeyNest,” said Jonathan Werth, Managing Director at LiFE Residential, specialising in luxury new build property across London zones 1-6.

LiFE Residential plan to have KeyNest exchange stores across their 13 prime London based branches in zones 1-6. The stores will hold keys for Airbnb and short-term rental guests, as well as housekeeping staff. This would also offer more convenient locations for Airbnb hosts and guests, currently successfully using the KeyNest solution for key exchange. This further establishes the benefits of having offices for estate agents, offering clients and non-clients a central hub for convenience, and offering property professionals a place to transact and meet potentional future customers.

“We already have a very experienced and strong board, which is now completed with knowledge and insights into our two main user groups: serviced apartment operators and estate agents,” said Marc Figueras, KeyNest co-founder.

“Our first round of investment allowed us to further develop our product in line with customer demand. We now have the funds to roll out our service across all major cities in the UK and start helping customers abroad with their key management and key exchanges,” adds Florian Hoven, KeyNest co-founder.

LiFE Ventures are also interested in other early stage start-ups that tackle challenges in big data, AI, IOT and Blockchain.

Please visit http://lifeventures.tech/ for more information about LiFE Ventures.

You can find more details about KeyNest here: https://www.keynest.com/

About LiFE Residential:

Founded in 2000 by Jonathan Werth and Jason Dienaar, who together hold more than 40 years of London property experience LiFE Residential specializes in luxury newly built property. With more than 4,000 properties to offer across the capital, the company offers services in lettings, sales and property management.

One of the UK’s leading real estate agencies, LiFE Residential has 13 offices located across London, in addition to 3 international offices in Hong Kong, Singapore and Cape Town. We employ over 170 dedicated members of staff who speak over 32 languages.

About KeyNest

KeyNest – https://www.keynest.com – enables its clients to share keys remotely by storing them in a local store, and to track all keys online from any device. KeyNest believes Airbnb hosting should be easy, and that life is too short to spend it waiting at home to let someone in.

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