Over 275 UK private investors of all sizes invested £1.33m in a property management tech business targeting a UK property maintenance market worth £30bn. Digital platform EVO is already the favoured choice of Property Companies, Housing Associations and Registered Providers and has recently signed new partnerships that will double the size of its current portfolio while major Local Authority contracts on the table are set to quadruple it in the next month. 

The £1m investment target was surpassed half way through the investment period which underpins the amount of investors with social impact requirements who want to help fix the UK’s housing crisis as well as demonstrating confidence in EVO’s solution and ambitions. 

The EVO platform, which connects landlords, tenants and tradespeople with simple, easy to use technology, also has a positive social impact with its mission to solve Britain’s broken rental property sector where some 2.8m people are living in substandard housing.  

The EVO application provides a more efficient way to maintain and responsively repair property by providing a fully managed solution so that both landlord and tenant don't have the hassle of sorting, while unlike other providers, all builders are pre-approved and EVO warrantees the work for 12 months. This not only allows tenants to feel in control and enhances their experience which reduces void periods, but also saves administrative time and management cost for landlords. Being subscriptions based, all costs are transparent and consistent. 

Currently EVO is instructed on over 5,500 properties for both private and public sector landlords, set to rise to 12,500 properties with current instructions alone. EVO also works in partnership with homelessness organisation Capital Letters and their 20 member London Boroughs, to help speed up the repairs of housing, thus housing more London families who are desperately in need.  

With this funding, EVO aims to scale up considerably with a target to onboard over 300,000 properties by 2026, which represents 3% of the UK repairs market. They plan to do this by targeting private landlords, major lettings agents and aggregators, and social housing providers & large scale property investors. 

It recently signed partnerships with Registered Providers of Affordable Housing SimplyPhi (formerly Phi Capital Investments) and Storm Housing – between them with over 7,000 social housing units planned by 2028, and before Christmas partnered with London’s Homelessness NFP organisation Capital Letters in an effort to free up much needed temporary accommodation through an accelerated maintenance and repairs programme. It also works with leading property brands British Land, Grainger and Acorn.

The company’s fundraising activities span both private and direct investment via the highly regulated and robust compliance platform Seedrs, and its secondary market where investment is more accessible to the general public.   

With social and affordable housing firmly on the built environment political agenda and renters expected to outnumber homeowners by 2039, the company is offering investors a chance to boost its social impact and ESG activities alongside strong potential future returns as the platform’s growth agenda takes shape.

Steven Rae, CEO of EVO, said: “Our fundraising success will allow us to build more partnerships and reach more people who rent. We have a tangible growth strategy which will take EVO nationwide and offer both capital investors and members of the public the opportunity to access growing returns while boosting their social impact activities. We know that the UK’s property rental market needs fixing and we, and our many clients, partners and tenants, believe we have the solution. The investment level surpassing our target so early on in the round underpins this. This is a chance to scale our services up and remove swathes of administration from landlords up and down the country who have been leaving the PRS in droves because of various hurdles. For housing providers we are able to enhance the customer experience by accelerating repairs within the tenants’ control and, perhaps most importantly, for temporary accommodation and social housing we are able to speed up the fixing of hundreds of units that weren’t up to living standards, helping to house those on waiting lists who have a right to safe, secure and healthy housing.”