An innovative tech start-up, specialising in software solutions for estate agents, is poised to further enhance and modernise key processes essential for running an efficient estate agency – capitalising on AI advancements after raising £3.3m from Praetura Ventures, including from NPIF II – Praetura Equity Finance, which is managed by Praetura as part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II.
Manchester-based Street Group, founded in 2015 by brother and sister, Tom and Heather Staff, provides two major product offerings called Spectre and Street.co.uk; software designed to help estate agencies more efficiently generate leads, win new business and provide exceptional customer service.
Recently awarded Best Overall Supplier by estate agents at the 2024 EA Masters, and Gold Supplier of the Year at ESTAs 2024, Street Group currently supports over 4,000 local, regional and national agents, and is planning to use the funding to accelerate product development, scale the team and introduce even more innovation to the industry, including advanced AI support for its suite of solutions.
The business, which has so far only used its own funding sources to scale to a team of 146 in under ten years, has raised £3.3m from Praetura Ventures. This minority investment includes funding from its Praetura EIS Growth Fund, Praetura Growth VCT and from NPIF II – Praetura Equity Finance. Praetura’s investment director, Peter Carway, has joined Street Group’s board as part of the investment.
An all-in-one marketing solution, Spectre enables agents to automate and execute their multi-channel marketing campaigns and strategies via direct mail, email marketing, social media and lead-generating property reports. Spectre’s sophisticated Propensity to Sell model, powered by AI, predicts when a property might enter the market, improving campaign efficacy by over 300%.
Street.co.uk, Street Group’s CRM for sales and lettings, property management and client accounting, provides cutting-edge innovations to eradicate traditionally manual processes from an agent’s day-to-day, while providing exemplary customer experience.
Features include intelligent online booking, automated workflows of background checks and a suite of AI-powered functionality, such as property listing generation, image enhancement and tenant maintenance triaging which reduces inbound maintenance requests by up to 20%.
Street.co.uk also boasts a suite of industry-first consumer mobile apps, giving home-movers and landlords transparency over their transactions and providing agents with a clear USP over their competitors to support the ever-growing expectations of modern consumers.
Heather Staff, Co-Founder of Street Group, said: “Our family has deep roots in the property industry, so we’ve seen first-hand the manual and complex processes that agents face. Moving home is also one of life’s most stressful experiences, and we have always firmly believed that modern technology is the key to making life easier for both agents and homemovers. Now, as the established choice for forward-thinking estate agents, Praetura’s support allows us to accelerate our agent-centric approach to ensure Street customers are the agents of choice for buyers, sellers, landlords and tenants.”
Peter Carway, Investment Director at Praetura Ventures, said: “This deal represents everything great about investment in the region. Entrepreneurial founders have created a business that is using advanced AI to drive innovation in a sector-altering way. Our backing will give the company extra fire power to take these advancements to more of the market, so it’s an incredibly exciting time for us to join the business. Street Group’s efficient and scalable solutions have driven their immense success to date and we are lucky to have the opportunity to support the businesses with more than money in the future.”
Sue Barnard, Senior Manager at the British Business Bank, said: “One of the key aims of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II is to provide access to finance to innovative companies that are creating new and exciting products. Not only does this latest deal with Street Group achieve this goal, but it will also be used to create new jobs as well. The North is a hub of fantastic tech companies, and the Fund is committed to continue driving investment into the region for small businesses to excel in their growth journeys.”
The £660m Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II (NPIFII) covers the entire North of England and provides loans from £25k to £2m and equity investment up to £5m to help a range of small and medium sized businesses to start up, scale up or stay ahead.
The purpose of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II is to drive sustainable economic growth by supporting innovation and creating local opportunity for new and growing businesses across the North. The Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II will increase the supply and diversity of early-stage finance for Northern smaller businesses, providing funds to firms that might otherwise not receive investment and help to break down barriers in access to finance.
