SmartRent

Market position

SmartRent describes itself as offering the industry's only end-to-end ecosystem for automating portfolios of rental assets and as a leader in enterprise smart home automation for multifamily; Bain Capital Ventures partner Matt Harris called it "the clear leader within the space" at the time of the Series B. Trade press notes it is one of the few property technology companies to have gone public, but that its share price declined sharply after listing, with the company valued at roughly a quarter of its original public valuation by the end of 2022.

The company emphasizes hardware-agnostic, open integration — supporting devices from multiple manufacturers and integrating with most property management and CRM tools rather than requiring system replacement — combined with an end-to-end offering spanning resident experience, access, leasing, connectivity, parking and maintenance operations, and the ability to manage devices at portfolio scale rather than single-home scale.

Technology

Cloud-based enterprise software with an open integration layer supporting hundreds of connected devices and software applications, alongside SmartRent-designed hardware such as a smart home hub and a four-wire thermostat. Devices communicate over Z-Wave to a hub that connects via WiFi or Ethernet (with cellular used temporarily during installation). The platform includes voice integrations with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, a resident mobile app, a web and mobile Community Manager portal, and analytics/reporting views for property staff.

Go-to-market

Enterprise sales to rental housing operators via demo requests and direct engagement, supported by case studies and customer testimonials, with deployment through large-scale installation programs and pilots across operator portfolios. Integration with existing property management and CRM systems is used to reduce switching friction, and the resident mobile app is distributed through consumer app stores.

Owners, operators and property managers of rental housing — multifamily, build-to-rent, single-family rental and student housing portfolios — plus the residents of those communities as end users of the mobile app. Named customer references include Greystar and Capital Square Living; UDR, Inc. was cited in 2019 as planning to deploy SmartRent in over 20,000 units.

Geography

Headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona. As of May 2020 the company said it was installed in communities across 38 states and running pilots in Ireland, the United Kingdom and Western Europe; in April 2021 it reported 230 employees across 41 states and stated it was expanding into the UK, Canada, Western Europe, South America and Asia.

History

SmartRent's own timeline places its founding in 2017, a $5 million Series A led by RET Ventures in 2018, a $32 million Series B led by Bain Capital Ventures (plus a Series B extension including the Amazon Alexa Fund) in 2019, and a $60 million Series C led by Spark Capital in May 2020, by which point it said it had raised over $102 million. In 2020 it added Self-Guided Tours and Alloy Access. In 2021 it completed a business combination with Fifth Wall Acquisition Corp. I and listed on the NYSE under SMRT, and integrated with property management systems including Yardi and Entrata. In 2022 it acquired SightPlan, a former RET Ventures portfolio company, and passed 500,000 installed units. It launched Community WiFi in 2023, reached one million self-guided tours in 2024, expanded the Alloy hardware line (Deadbolt+, Fusion, Leak Sensor+) and announced a $10 million investment in next-generation smart property technology. Founder-CEO Lucas Haldeman later stepped down and left the board; Frank Martell is listed as President and Chief Executive Officer.

Risks & controversies

After its SPAC listing, SmartRent's stock declined substantially, and by the end of 2022 it was valued at roughly a quarter of its original public valuation. Following the announcement that founder-CEO Lucas Haldeman was stepping down and leaving the board, law firms Block & Leviton and Faruqi & Faruqi announced investigations into potential investor class action lawsuits. A short seller previously published claims that investor RET Ventures had sold its stock, that RET limited partners represented SmartRent's largest client base and that new orders fell by over 60 percent when those customers stopped using SmartRent, and that hardware from a Croatian manufacturer carried security vulnerabilities linked to a criminal incident at a property. RET Ventures said the report contained factual inaccuracies and that it had distributed rather than sold shares, and SmartRent called the report "littered with unsupported claims and obvious factual and contextual errors." Separately, consumer app-store reviews describe installation problems and unreliable lock, thermostat and leak-sensor behavior.