Beanstock was born from a need to make real estate operations digitised, fluid, and scalable. Neither Emma nor her co-founder came from the real estate industry, instead they both came from a high-growth tech startup. So, with an outside-in perspective, their main focus was on injecting technology into this space.

What is Beanstock and how does it work?

Beanstock is an online marketplace that helps retail investors (like you and I) invest, finance, and manage properties. All the properties on Beanstock are vetted by a team of experts and the platform is designed to help the user every step of the way.

Emma notes that Beanstock solves three challenges in particular for investors: “The first one is the lack of experience or knowledge. So, if you don't know how the real estate world works, and we ask you to invest 200k into a property, you need to do lots of research and you need to talk to a lot of people. There are a lot of topics to master, and this is one of the biggest barriers of entry to investing.” On Beanstock, any individual, regardless of their level of experience in real estate, can develop and manage their real estate portfolio in just a few clicks.

“The second one is time. You may know how everything works, but you never have time to go out and view properties or conduct inventories with your tenants.” Beanstock has a team of real estate specialists that can help at every step of the journey: property search, mortgage applications, buying process, refurbishment, furnishings, tenant finding, etc.

“The third one is access to financing. Someone who wants to invest could be faced with negative answers from their primary bank and they would think that they cannot invest, but that’s not true. In most cases, if someone has a stable professional situation and some money on the side then they can invest.” Using cutting-edge technology and data analysis tools, Beanstock selects high-yield buy-to-let properties, translates their rental potential into financial projections and provides users with all the analyses and information they need to make informed investment decisions.

Geographical barriers are also broken down, to expand the buy-to-let investment market and make it more accessible for everyone.

Emma said: “We’re trying to make property investing as simple as stock investing.”

Challenges faced along the way

Beanstock has survived two main crises. The first one was COVID-19, which emerged just as the company was finding its feet. Emma explained: “When we started, we couldn’t go to the office, so we had to onboard our first employees remotely. This took a lot of effort because we had to work around helping them understand the business and how to create a company culture without physically seeing anyone.”

Despite this, the pandemic did accelerate the digitalisation of the industry. Emma noticed that a lot more people and businesses are open to things like e-signatures, which was unimaginable a few years ago.

The second crisis is the current financial situation we’re navigating. “The main impact is uncertainty,” said Emma. “Mortgage rates are increasing and it’s creating a lot of uncertainty on the consumer side. We’re spending a lot more time explaining to people why it still makes sense to invest in real estate.”

The future

Since its formation two years ago, Beanstock has grown to a team of 70. Recruitment is a big focus for the company because Emma feels that if you hire the right people, then your company will grow in a very healthy way.

It now plans to gain as much market share as possible and become an “undisputable leader” within the next 12 months. There is also a plan to expand into Europe because Emma has noticed some growing interest.

“Our goal is to keep on creating services not only for the end customer but also to all the stakeholders that are involved in the value chain, whether it be brokers, notaries contractors etc. The idea is to develop the product so that all the stakeholders can track and exchange in a very seamless way.”

This article originally appeared in the Sept/Oct issue of Startups Magazine. Click here to subscribe.