São Paulo ‘Yuca’ startup wants to change urban living and offers housing as a service

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Yuca, a startup in the real estate market, has as its cornerstone the concept of sharing. Founded in 2019, the company rents rooms and apartments in the heart of the city of São Paulo to young people who are increasingly interested in living in large cities – and paying less for it.

Now the company has drawn new breath to continue its mission of uncomplicated urban living: a US$10 million investment – about R$50 million. The Series A round was led by venture capital fund Monashees, known for investing in unicorns like 99, Rappi, and Loggi.

In addition to Monashees, Terracota Ventures, ONEVC, and Tishman Speyer, a real estate company, also participated in the round. This is the second time Monashees has invested in Yuca. The first was in 2019, the year in which this proptech was founded. Back then, the fund invested US$6 million in the startup in a round that also included Creditas, Montage, angel investors, and ONEVC.

Housing as a service

Founded in 2019, Yuca aims to be a home management company beyond the niche, offering various products for every moment in the user’s life. The company started with the co-living format, buying, renovating, and renting shared rooms in large apartments in the city of São Paulo.

In addition to renting, Yuca is also responsible for managing the properties. The startup takes care of cleaning and consolidates all financial operations such as apartment ownership, IPTU, and basic bills into a single invoice for the tenant. It is the idea of housing as a service.

According to Eduardo Campos, CEO and co-founder of Yuca, most proptechs today focus on transactions involving purchasing, rental, and financing of properties. Still, none takes care of the day-to-day management. For him, when it comes to mediating between landlords and tenants, there is still a lack of good companies in the country, especially when it comes to the financial management of properties. “We believe we are the only ones in this sense. A company that makes life uncomplicated for tenants and does everything at the push of a button,” he says.

About two months ago, the startup also began targeting individual apartments, known as studios, to meet growing demand from its customers, looking for more affordable options and a good location but no sharing. Adding the two solutions together, Yuca now has about 500 properties under management, more than quadrupling its portfolio compared to the same period last year.

Of these, 30% are individual apartments – rapid growth for a solution created just a few months ago. Yuca expects studios to account for at least 50% of the total portfolio next year. In some neighborhoods in the city, Campos said, there are queues of potential tenants.

The strategy in favor of studios began in 2020 with the acquisition of an entire building in Vila Madalena and several studios in Pinheiros, in the west of the city.

Plans

With the new addition, Yuca intends to expand these individual apartments on the total account. To reaffirm its new positioning, the startup must launch its own new buildings in the first quarter of 2022. “There are a lot of opportunities when we talk about whole buildings, starting with residential,” the entrepreneur says.

At the moment, according to the founder, there are already other buildings under management. Still, they have not yet been launched – the company does not disclose the location of these properties. “In the next 10 years, it will be common to see periodic launches of Yuca,” he says.

To consolidate its acquisition strategy, renovate them, and convert them into private studios, Yuca will use funds from the real estate investment fund it launched last November. One of the first to focus on residential real estate in Brazil, Yuca’s fund collected about R$40 million when it opened.

According to the company, the idea is also to use the capital from the latest round to create an investment platform that will democratize access to the real estate market in the country, making operations easier, more profitable, and with more liquidity for the investor.

All this technological and operational growth will also require new employees. Yuca plans to double its headcount (currently 112) and expand from 20 to 60 people in the technology and product team alone. The rest of the investment will be used for marketing strategies.

Source: exame

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