Steve White wasn’t looking to sell the successful software firm he founded 15 years ago.
But when the ideal buyer emerged for RentPrep, White decided the time was right.
RentPrep, a tenant screening service for landlords, has been acquired by Roofstock, a larger venture capital-funded company based in Oakland California. Terms were not disclosed.
White, who founded the company in 2007, said part of the deal was a commitment to retaining the company’s Western New York operation. RentPrep has 12 local employees and office space on Como Park Boulevard in Lancaster. White owns the building and a long-term lease was transferred to Roofstock as part of the transaction.
White said he expects the company, which has 22 employees overall, to continue adding employees in Buffalo.
“Buffalo is a perfect market for them and we are going to be hiring," he said.
RentPrep has its own software platform and also actively markets itself through online content, but White said the company’s effectiveness has stood out in recent years against competitors who rely heavily on automation and artificial intelligence.
As the company’s value increased, it also became clear to White that new levels of growth were going to be difficult to reach with a bootstrapped model.
“Roofstock has almost 800 employees, with a deep bench of industry experts, and it’s fascinating the speed at which they can move,” he said. “To me, it is exciting to start innovating in a way we could not as a bootstrapped company.”
White is staying on as Roofstock’s head of screening operations.
Roofstock recently raised $240 million in venture capital funding at a $2 billion valuation and will integrate RentPrep into its larger portfolio of tech-based real estate products.
“RentPrep has digitized the tenant screening process to finally offer a technology solution in a space that has been desperately lacking innovation," said Gary Beasley, CEO and co-founder of Roofstock. "The company is a natural fit for Roofstock as we continue to expand our platform to deliver best-in-class solutions for investors across all phases of the property ownership lifecycle."
