50. Pad

Founders: Alex Chin and Christopher Moon
Founded: January 2016
Website: www.pad.co.uk

After years of terrible rental experiences Alex Chin and Christopher Moon felt there was absolutely no reason for the waste, conflict, hassle, and lack of trust that seemed to have become par for the course with modern renting.

Their solution, Pad, enables you to find, view, and rent your next home all through your phone, but the real USP is that you can rent deposit free and without agency fees.

What’s more, you’re covered for maintenance issues for the duration of their tenancy.

Moon’s second fast-growth business – check out fellow Startups 100 2018 company Tribe – renters pay £9.99 per month for Pad’s services.

And it’s not just the renters who benefit; landlords and estate agents reap the rewards from reduced hassle and tradespeople can “tap into the ecosystem” to access fix or repair issues which are 90% covered by Pad.

Whilst the start-up expected agents to be its main competitors, they have in fact become its “friends” and now list all their stock through the platform.

After 18 months, Pad had thousands of properties listed and thousands of renters buying into its “rent revolution”.

Projected turnover for 2018 is £5.8m, with £2.6m gross profit – all of which will be reinvested into global scaling. Pad is currently in the process of securing £2m in investment that will allow it to launch in five cities in the UK.

Beyond that, the next 12 months will see it raise a Series B round to take its solution global as it looks to become the Airbnb for long term local renters and cut out waste on the supply side for landlords.

Chin and Moon’s passion for the business is clear: “We won’t rest until Pad scales globally and we have seen that we have the demand and supply to do so. Everyone in the market believes that, with the right funding, this will be the rental market unicorn.”