EliseAI is a company that develops AI-powered property management tools that enable property managers to communicate effectively with tenants. Most recently, it raised $75 million in a Series D round, bringing the company's valuation to $1 billion. This success strengthened the company's position in the industry and opened the door to new opportunities.

EliseAI 

EliseAI is a collaboration between co-founder and CEO Minna Song and Tony Stoyanov, the company's second co-founder. Song met Stoyanov as an undergraduate student at Cambridge and together they began developing AI-based communication software. When Song started working at a residential real estate firm in New York after graduation, he observed how inefficiencies in the industry were contributing to fatigue and burnout among management teams, especially when it came to messaging with tenants. In order to solve this problem, Song and Stoyanov founded EliseAI in 2017. EliseAI uses chatbots to assist tenants with things like apartment tours, maintenance requests, rent renewals and payments. These robots are trained on tenants' questions and requests (both those looking to rent new apartments and existing residents). They are designed to automatically relay requests to humans when necessary.

We only use data that we generate internally. We don't buy or use external data. This gives us control over the data we use. We do not sell, re-license or otherwise share any consumer data for any purpose. Consumer data is the exclusive property of our respective client (a property manager or owner) and we only use that data for the limited purposes expressly permitted by our client agreements, our privacy policy and applicable law.

Minna Song, co-founder and CEO of EliseAI

EliseAI takes the protection and privacy of user data very seriously. Users can request deletion of their data, opt out of having their data used for training, and receive a copy of all data EliseAI has about them in accordance with laws such as the California Consumer Privacy Act. EliseAI is continuously improving the capabilities of its chatbots to anticipate tenant needs and, on average, increase rental tour bookings by 125% while reducing overdue payments by 50%. The company aims to increase operational efficiency, reduce technology stacks and costs associated with one-stop solutions, increase occupancy, reduce late payments and improve the tenant experience for multifamily and single-family rental housing owners, operators and third-party property management companies.

Future Goals and Expansion into New Sectors

EliseAI offers a dashboard where property managers can track leads and residents' requests, generate reports on operations and track the progress of renovations. The dashboard comes free of charge with any of EliseAI's AI products, which the company offers as modules priced on a software-service model. EliseAI, which employs around 150 full-time employees in its NYC offices, plans to expand further into the healthcare sector following a successful round of funding. The company believes that much of its technology stack can be adapted to meet the administrative needs of health clinics, such as appointment scheduling, billing and payments. EliseAI launched a healthcare solution called HealthAI in 2023 and many providers are already using it. Sapphire Ventures led the round with participation from Point72 Private Investments, Divco West, Navitas Capital and Koch Real Estate Investments. Song said the new capital, which brings EliseAI's total raised to $140 million, will be spent on hiring, AI R&D, product development and supporting EliseAI's go-to-market efforts.

EliseAI competes with companies such as Colleen AI, Funnel, Knock and Leasehawk. The company serves more than 350 clients, including 70% of the top 50 rental housing operators in the US. “We have not targeted extreme growth in headcount, instead focusing on controlled hiring and sustainable burnout management, and have consistently made strategic investments in revenue growth,” said Song, co-founder of EliseAI.

While EliseAI is currently the most widely adopted AI platform in this space, the residential real estate market is still in the early stages of using AI to its potential. I believe the company is well positioned to pioneer in residential and achieve similar results in new verticals such as healthcare.

Cathy Gao, partner of Sapphire