Sheltr, an innovative home maintenance software company, has announced a seed series investment of $3.2 million from investors including South Park Commons, MetaProp, NYCA Partners, Ben Porterfield, co-founder of Looker Data Sciences; Misha Esipov, co-founder of Nova Credit; and Marcus Ridgway, co-founder of Invitation Homes, among others. Founded in 2019 by Andrew Wynn and Praveen Chekuri, Sheltr will use the funds to make key hires at its San Francisco-based headquarters, grow its platform of service providers, and expand into new cities.
“Our health, our pets, and our cars all benefit from preventative care — why shouldn’t our homes? A Sheltr Home Checkup is a physical for your home,” said Wynn. ”We created Sheltr to help homeowners avoid surprising home repairs and make the entire process of managing a home effortless and more affordable.”
The Insurance Information Institute claims that one in 20 homeowners will experience a home insurance claim this year. Based on Sheltr’s estimates, over one-third of these claims are preventable as they are most often a result of poor maintenance and lack of upkeep. Sheltr intends to reduce that number to zero.
Through a single app, Sheltr members schedule and pay for twice-annual home check-ups performed by Sheltr’s trained and trusted Home Professionals. Each check-up includes routine preventative maintenance, like replacing furnace filters and changing smoke and carbon monoxide detector batteries, as well as technology-driven home assessments that catalog appliances, monitor the home’s exterior condition, and provide proactive recommendations for home services. Unlike platforms such as HomeAdvisor, Angie’s List, and Thumbtack, home services booked through Sheltr are fulfilled by Sheltr’s network of trusted and validated tradespeople. A home is the biggest monetary investment people make and Sheltr values and protects that asset from booking through job completion to ensure ease, quality, and satisfaction.
“Sheltr flips the traditional paradigm in home maintenance from reactive home crisis management and expensive remediation to preventative home maintenance that catches and mitigate issues before they become expensive and disruptive problems to fix,” said Zak Schwarzman, partner at MetaProp Ventures, a leading investor in early-stage property technology companies. “Sheltr is really resonating with homeowners who have long been frustrated with surprise home repairs and the difficulty in arranging high-quality service providers. Notably, Sheltr is earning an equally warm reception from aligned partners like home insurers and real estate brokers. Sheltr helps them enhance underwriting, mitigate risk, and deepen customer engagement.”
Sheltr makes home maintenance effortless. Who has the time, interest, or bandwidth to stay on top of all the little issues involved in home owning that, if neglected, become big problems? Sheltr helps homeowners avoid untimely and costly repairs through preventative maintenance and a simple booking process for home services.
“Sheltr is critical to both Zerodown and our customers,” said Abhijeet Dwivedi, CEO of Zerodown, a technology company that purchases homes and whose customers build toward ownership of the home each month. “We depend on Sheltr to ensure the homes in our portfolio are well maintained and running smoothly. “Moreover, Sheltr’s focus on proactive and simple home maintenance really aligns with our goal of simplifying the entire homeownership journey.”
Since launching in January 2019, Sheltr has grown quickly and expanded to serve the entire San Francisco Bay Area. Sheltr has partnered with companies who also benefit from its preventative maintenance regimen and customers’ ease of booking home services including Hippo Insurance, REX Real Estate, Zerodown, and Notion.
