Stairpay, a platform aiming to simplify the process of shared ownership for first-time buyers, has raised £750,000 in pre-seed funding.
There are 8.5 million people currently renting but fewer than 20,000 shared ownership properties became available in 2021-2022, according to government figures.
While there is no recent data on available shared ownership properties for this past year – it has been reported that the number of first-time buyers dropped to a 10-year low of 293,000 in 2023.
The end of the Help to Buy scheme in 2022, which enabled the purchase of almost 390,000 newly built homes, is said to have also created a supply void.
Stairpay, which currently focuses on automating staircasing – the process of gradually building towards 100% home ownership – hopes to be a part of the housing solution.
Born out of the “desire to solve challenges faced by first-time buyers looking to get onto the property ladder”, it eventually aims to automate the entire shared ownership journey for both residents and housing associations – from initial purchase to staircasing and resales.
Residents can manage their entire shared ownership experience through the app instead of dealing with multiple advisers and complex paperwork.
Stairpay says it also captures data points to help housing associations better understand their residents and adapt their shared ownership offerings.
Stairpay’s pre-seed investment was led by Fuel Ventures, with participation from Heartfelt Ventures and prominent angel investors such as Rob Hamilton, who built and sold Instant Offices to private equity house MML Capital.
The influx of capital will be used by Stairpay to further develop its platform and onboard more housing associations.
Floris ten Nijenhuis, founder of Stairpay, said: “The UK has the largest shared ownership market globally, but it has challenges to address. Our partnerships with Places for People, Clarion, and Share to Buy signify the collective intent to apply a data-driven approach to significantly improve the shared ownership experience for residents, housing associations, and other stakeholders, which will help more people realize their dream of full home ownership.
“Shared ownership has also become an increasingly popular asset class, attracting significant investment from the likes of Blackstone, Legal & General, and M&G. Our technology provides data and insights to make shared ownership an even more attractive asset class by determining who it works for.”