Transforming renting: How Flent is changing the game in premium rental housing

With more people moving from Tier II+ cities to metros in search of opportunities, the Indian rental housing market is booming with high rent yields and a double-digit year-on-year growth in demand. It is projected to experience robust growth with a CAGR of 4.56% through 2030, according to TechSci Research.

However, the market has long been riddled with inefficiencies, including high brokerage fees, inconsistent property management, and ambiguous tenancy laws. 

“India's rental market has so much potential, but it’s bogged down by legacy systems. We want to make renting as easy as booking a hotel room, where tenants and landlords don’t have to deal with the typical friction," Shail Daswani tells YourStory.

To simplify and elevate the renting experience, he, along with Mayank Lalwani and Rishabh Agnihotri, founded Flent in 2023 with Rs 30 lakh from their personal savings. The proptech startup works as a full-stack solution for premium rental homes and aims to provide a tech-driven and hassle-free approach for both landlords and tenants.

The Bengaluru-based company offers fully furnished, designer turnkey homes with minimal deposits and zero brokerage. It targets the top 1% of working professionals, primarily aged between 22 and 35 years, with an average salary ranging from Rs 15 lakh to Rs 50 lakh per annum. 

The genesis of Flent

Before starting up, Lalwani was a software engineer at Cisco, while Daswani led Product at YourStory Media and 100ms, a video conferencing solutions provider. Agnihotri also led Product at 100ms and served as Senior Product Manager at Open Financial Technologies.

Later, in 2023, they started their entrepreneurial journey with Slash, an AI-driven SaaS startup. However, they couldn’t find the right product-market fit.

Meanwhile, for the last five years ago, Daswani and Lalwani had been leasing homes and listing them on Airbnb as a side hustle, becoming ‘superhosts’ in 2022. They also helped transform their friends' homes on weekends. Agnihotri, having lived in four cities and rented multiple homes, invested significantly in personalising each space. 

“We quickly realised that we were onto something when tenants kept extending their stays beyond the typical short-term rental period,” Flent Co-founder Daswani recalls.

The friends recognised that the existing rental ecosystem only focused on getting tenants into properties. There was a lack of after-service such as property upkeep and tenant management, and no seamless communication between landlords and tenants. This led them to create Flent as a holistic, tech-driven solution.

A full-stack solution for premium rentals

Flent uses proprietary AI to predict rental demand, pricing, and urban macro trends. It targets homeowners with secondary properties, offering lease or service agreements for 1-5 years. 

It refurbishes properties in 3-5 days, adding furniture, decor, and appliances. It also ensures timely rent, real-time updates, rental guarantees, and property insurance, working with over 50 vendors across India.

Once listed under the Flent brand, verified tenants can book these homes for flexible stays between one to 11 months, with minimal deposits and custom-designed spaces.

Through Flent’s Reserve programme, prospective tenants can specify their desired location, furnishing preferences, and ideal community. “Customers just have to sign up, share their preferences, and pay a refundable booking fee. Flent finds a fully furnished, designer home within 15 days. If they like it, they can move in immediately. If not, they receive a full refund—no questions asked,” Daswani states.

For landlords, the 13-membered team serves as a modern property management company, guaranteeing rental income even when properties are vacant. It focuses on high-end homes with rental prices between Rs 60,000 to Rs 70,000, catering to landlords—often NRIs or multi-property investors—who seek consistent returns without management hassles.

He explains, “Using our algorithm to identify homes based on supply/demand signals, we onboard them through service-level agreements and turn them into beautifully designed turnkey homes. From furniture and appliances to daily necessities, every detail is taken care of.” 

Business model

Since its inception in October 2023, Flent has created a portfolio of 120 rooms across Bengaluru, from 1 BHKs to 3 BHKs, all of which were rented out within 10 days of launch.

The startup has hosted over 120 tenants and has a waitlist of over 500 people, consistently achieving 93% occupancy.

It charges a commission or convenience fee ranging from 20% to 45%, depending on factors like location, property size, acquisition price, and selling price. In August, the startup generated a revenue of Rs 32 lakh. 

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Currently operating in Bengaluru, it has plans to expand to other metropolitan cities like Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, and Chennai, onboarding 500 more units.

“Bengaluru was our starting point, but cities like Mumbai and Gurugram are high on our list. We aim to have 300-350 homes under management by next year,” Daswani adds.

Future plans 

The startup raised Rs 6.5 crore in September 2024 to expand its core team and develop its platform, aiming to make renting 10X easier. Of the total, Rs 4.6 crore was raised through equity financing and the rest through debt.

The round was led by WEH Ventures, with participation from US-based 2 AM Ventures, Pareto Holdings, and a group of angel investors, including Shradha Sharma (Founder and CEO, YourStory), Aneesh Reddy (Founder, Capillary Technologies), Arjun Vaidya (Founder, Dr. Vaidya), Abhilash N (Founder, Ivy Homes), and Sanchan Saxena (GM, Atlassian).  

The startup was also part of the Tech30 list of most promising startups of 2024. The list, curated by YourStory, was unveiled at TechSparks Bengaluru 2024.

Flent plans to develop category-focused tech products within 5-10 years, including a demand and supply tracking model for real-time rental pricing optimisation for landlords.

It also aims to expand its operations to manage 30,000 to 50,000 homes within the next decade.

The startup claims to have no direct competition in the Indian market. It competes with players like US-based Blueground and Hellolanding.