The newest member of the group called “daughters of Unicamp”, companies founded mainly by former students of the University, has just arrived on the market promising to make the lives of university students easier. LiveHere, based in Barão Geraldo, district of Campinas, is a startup that aims to simplify the relationship between students and property owners, without the former having to present a guarantor or deposit check to complete a rental. “For the contract to be effective, it is enough for the renter or his parents to provide proof of income”, says the company's CEO, Vinícius Freitas, who was a Computer Engineering student at Unicamp, but left the course to study Administration in Education Higher in Business, Law and Engineering (Insper).
Most of the people who work at LiveHere are still students at Unicamp. Currently, the team has 22 members. Vinícius says that the idea of creating the startup came from a personal experience. When he came from another city to study at the University, he didn't know Campinas and didn't even have a defined place to live. “I had a lot of difficulty finding a property and then formalizing the lease, mainly because of the bureaucracy. The biggest problem is the lack of a guarantor. As most university students who change cities face this same problem, I saw this situation as an opportunity to undertake”, says the company executive.
After studying the real estate market and conducting interviews with students to identify what their greatest needs were, Vinícius and his friends Lucas Rodolfo and Lucas Souza, respectively students of the Computer Science and Computer Engineering courses at Unicamp, set out to format from LiveHere. During the company's planning, they sought guidance from executives from other startups, with the purpose of making the project more solid. “This helped us a lot in structuring the business model and defining our objectives”, says Lucas Rodolfo.
In addition to simplifying the relationship between students and property owners, LiveHere intends to go further and participate in the life of university students, as Vinícius notes. According to him, even living in other states, parents can actively participate in negotiations, as the rental process is completely digital. The procedure is as follows: the interested party enters the platform developed by the startup and analyzes the available offers – there are currently around 500. All are illustrated with photos, and some images can be viewed in 360º. The search can be refined with the help of personalized filters.
Then, the student can schedule an in-person visit. If the property or vacancy [rooms are also rented] meets the tenant's needs, all remaining procedures are also done digitally, such as sending a proposal to the owner, registering documents and even signing the contract. “Everything is very fast and safe. Even the analysis of proof of income can be done in around 30 minutes”, assures Lucas Rodolfo, adding that the procedure is monitored by the company's legal department.
LiveHere, according to its representatives, also offers extra benefits to university students. “We created a benefits club, through which students can make purchases or hire services with discounts in restaurants, bookstores, language schools, etc.,” says Vinícius. Initially, the startup will only operate in the Campinas region, which has an audience of around 63 thousand university students. “Our initial focus is the region. We expect to serve around 2 students in the first year of operation. Over time, we plan to expand to other large university cities in 2018, increasing our target audience to more than 150.000 university students”, estimates the CEO of LiveHere.
Abroad, the startup's founders point out, the student housing market generates billions a year. In the United Kingdom alone, the sector generated approximately R$16 billion in turnover in 2016. “Large companies have already started investing in the sector here in Brazil and promise to invest more than R$500 million in the coming years”, explains Lucas Rodolfo.
