StrideUp, which seeks to make it easier for people to buy a home, has received £1.6m in Seed funding from lead investor Picus Capital.
The startup’s round, which consists of equity and debt financing, also drew participation from a group of angel investors.
StrideUp enables users to start buying a portion of their home and gradually increase their ownership.
Sakeeb Zaman, co-founder of StrideUp, said: “Housing affordability is one of the UK’s most pressing financial issues. Homeowners are almost twice as likely to be satisfied with their housing tenure compared to renters, but many people are stuck renting for years because of high house prices and limited availability of mortgages.
“With frustration building up we saw a pressing need for an alternative solution. StrideUp gives people an easier and more gradual approach to homeownership – they simply start by buying a portion of their home and can increase as they save,” he concluded.
Founded in 2016 by Zaman and Rohan Trivedi, both former employees at Deutsche Bank, the startup launched this summer.
The money will be used to hire across all departments and improve StrideUp’s proprietary technology and increase the rate of transactions completed.
Robin Godenrath, of Picus Capital, added: “StrideUp is offering an innovative solution to allow young people to own a home who would otherwise have to save for years to get a traditional mortgage. On the other hand it gives investors access to a very attractive asset class via a shared ownership model. StrideUp itself provides a truly digital platform for the related transactions and with this funding round accelerates their path to becoming a very relevant player in UK home financing.”
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