Rental Startup Rentberry Reportedly Becomes Ukraine’s Latest Tech Unicorn

Rentberry, a Ukrainian rental startup based in San Francisco, reportedly became the country’s latest unicorn valued at more than $1 billion after raising $90 million in the latest funding.

Unicorn is a financial term used to describe startups with over $1 billion in value.

Ukrainian business outlet AIN reported that Rentberry has successfully completed Series A financing and raised $90 million from venture capital (VC) firms Berkeley Hills Capital and GTM Capital.

Rentberry told AIN that the latest funding raised the company’s valuation to $1 billion, thus making it the latest Ukrainian unicorn.

Founded in 2015 by Ukrainians Oleksii Lyubynskyi, Liliya Ostapchuk, Oleksandr Kotovskov and Denys Holubovskyi, Rentberry is an online rental platform that allows potential tenants to bid against each other for long-term rentals.

The platform, currently based in San Francisco but with services worldwide, describes itself as “a transparent and secure home rental platform that connects tenants and landlords.” Rentberry said it “[delivers] the most efficient set of tools to streamline your rental experience from submitting your applications, credit reports and custom offers, to e-signing rental agreements and online rental payments.”

Rentberry has a profile on Ukrainian tech site DOU, with an office listed in the center of Kyiv. Multiple Ukrainian tech developers also left comments under the company’s profile regarding their work experience and interview process.

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Western outlets raised questions about Rentberry’s business models between 2016 and 2017, which involved tenants bidding against each other amidst housing crises in some major cities.

One of the founders, Lyubynskyi, rejected this notion at the time and said Rentberry adds transparency to the complicated rental process.

Ukraine has been one of the major tech hubs in Eastern Europe. Prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the country had witnessed an emerging tech scene that produced numerous notable startups with more than 50 venture capital (VC) funds to boost.

The country also gave birth to some notable startups in different sectors, such as Grammarly and GitLab.