Over the past two decades, rental properties have doubled in Mexico. More than 5 million households live in a rented property.
However, renting a place to live these days still tends to be informal, disorganized, and inefficient.
Let's dive in.
Imagine this
You're a real estate broker who, after weeks of showcasing an apartment, finds the ideal tenant. However, due to traditional security measures like having an "Aval," the deal falls through.
Most potential tenants don´t have a guarantor to vouch for them, which makes the process slower.
Closing a rental operation takes weeks of interviews, screening, contract elaboration, and building trust between parties.
Additionally, you have to deal with the extensive paperwork of managing your tenants and contract renewals.
This is where Mica plays a role in providing brokers, landlords, and tenants with more efficient tools to make their experience smoother.
Explain it like I'm five

Mica is a web platform and app that simplifies renting by equipping tenants and landlords with legal and financial tools to pay bills and underwrite risk.
Brokers can gain a higher deal flow of potential tenants and leave screening, contract creation, and security to Mica while obtaining an extra commission.
Landlords can stress less by having Mica take care of screening, contract creation, rent collection, and protecting their rent. Mica also takes care of legal risk and breaches of contract.
Tenants can rent without a guarantor and manage all their bills and payments while increasing their credit score.
Founders aim to make the renting experience safer and smoother for all parties involved.
The ABCs
Industries: Proptech
Headquarters: Mexico City, Mexico
Year Operations Started: 2022
Team Size: 18
Raised: US $270k Pre-seed (Raising seed round)
Investors: Techstars, Arkfund, DVC, First Check Ventures, Iluminar, Flight VC, Stellar, Valhalla Valley Ventures
Business Model: Annual & monthly subscription fees
Other players:
Background check
What we like:
Traction: Founders shared that they have been growing on average 123% Month over Month in revenue since launching. Also, Mica is currently the only PropTech in the rental space that has formed a strategic partnership with AMPI, the country's largest real estate organization.
Partnerships: Instead of looking for individual landlords, Mica’s team is dedicated to making strategic partnerships with individual real estate brokers and agencies. Most of their clients are coming directly from them. Once they see the added value, the same brokers and landlords recommend their services to more clients, creating a flywheel effect.
Timing: A recent Mexican tax law was implemented in 2022, reducing the tax burden on rental income from +20% to just 1.25%. It does not apply to all. The tax benefit is only for those who meet the required criteria of RESICO. However, this has opened the doors for those seeking to formalize and improve the renting experience.
Screening: They manage due diligence for landlords, simplifying the process of investigating tenants looking to rent. Their machine learning models can check multiple data points that help them accelerate the vetting process. Founders claim that they can approve tenants in days instead of months as the traditional methods.
Legal: When renting a property, many legal documents and processes must be done for a tenant to occupy the property. Mica takes full accountability for the tenant’s responsibilities, acting as their guarantor, making the process smoother, and paying rent to landlords if tenants fail to comply with the contract requirements.
Roadblocks:
Risk: If tenants don't follow through with their agreements or breach their contracts, Mica must apply the quickest eviction process in the market to cap their risk.
Costs: SPEI transfers and cash payments are efficient. Most tenants don´t want to pay for extra services and don´t mind paying cash or making bank transfers to landlords. Mica has to work hard on adding benefits to all parties, so it makes sense for them to jump on their platform.
Tech: Each rental case has unique specifics, and no standardized requirements exist. They all have significant variations. Developing a digital solution to address all the different scenarios is tough.
Assurance: Mica's main advantage is offering legal assistance and security when renting. However, according to the founders, they have found that gaining the trust of potential clients takes time.
The Architects
Julian Stastny, Co-Founder & CEO. Previously @ Homie & Byprice.
Jesus Gutierrez, Co-Founder & CTO. Previously @ Homie & Redify.
Want to invest? Mica is currently raising their seed round. Request intro with founders by sending an email to gabriel@readrunway.com
Headlines Corner
Cobre, a Colombian payment automation platform for CFOs, raised USD 13M in funding. (Techcrunch)
Lipigas acquired 70% of Rocktruck, a Chilean logistics startup, for USD 13.4M. (Descubre VC)
Luuna, a Mexican mattress startup, has opened its first factory, investing USD 25M to boost production. (Mexico Business News)
Bia, a Colombian energy startup, raised USD 16.5M in a Series A round led by Kaszek with contributions from Nazca, Ewa Capital, and WildSur. (Latam List)
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