{"id":23900,"date":"2025-07-25T20:47:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T20:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/23900\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T20:47:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T20:47:07","slug":"how-this-26-year-old-rescued-a-failing-real-estate-startup-and-landed-58-million-from-google-ventures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/23900\/","title":{"rendered":"How This 26-Year-Old Rescued A Failing Real Estate Startup\u2014And Landed $58 Million From Google Ventures"},"content":{"rendered":"

Think this is nice? It\u2019s a version of the weekly Under 30 newsletter and would be even better in your inbox<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Din Bisevac and his team at Buena.<\/p>\n

Photo by Daniel Faro\u0300<\/p>\n

Two years after Din Bisevac joined German real estate startup Buena as a product designer, the company\u2014which was focused on leasing properties\u2014had burned through $14 million. The future of the business was up for question.<\/p>\n

But on Thursday, Buena announced a $58 million Series A round led by Google Ventures, with backing from 20VC and Stride. It\u2019s the first raise since Bisevac stepped into the role of CEO in 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe original business model was kind of rent arbitrage. We would rent apartments at below market and try to rent them out above market,\u201d the Under 30 Europe alum<\/a> told Forbes. \u201cI spent the first year just restructuring, finding a good deal with the existing investors and basically pivoting the company.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, Buena has reinvented itself as a Berlin-based software startup offering property management tools for landlords. The platform works with property owners to automate everything from listing properties and managing viewings to vetting tenants and coordinating maintenance, right down to scheduling a handyman or janitor. As of June, it\u2019s managing more than 60,000 apartments across Germany and has hit $25 million in annual recurring revenue.<\/p>\n

Most of Buena\u2019s clients are private individuals\u2014your typical apartment building owners\u2014but the company has recently begun working with institutional investors managing hundreds of units.<\/p>\n

\u201cProperty management just has a terrible, terrible brand in Germany. No matter which owner or tenant you ask, everyone will tell you they hate their property manager,\u201d Bisevac says of the inspiration for the pivot. Still, with many clients used to the old-school way of doing things, he adds: \u201cWe wouldn\u2019t position ourselves as this mainly technology company in front of our customers because it’s a bit too abstract for them, and frankly just doesn’t matter too much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bisevac may have been thrust into the CEO seat, but he\u2019s no stranger to entrepreneurship. Before \u201ccontent creator\u201d was even a term, the now-26-year-old was one of Germany\u2019s earliest YouTube child stars, hosting a Jimmy Fallon-style talk show on his channel. By age nine, he\u2019d launched his own clothing brand, which he says gained traction with his followers. After his parents made him quit the online fame, he built a Shopify site for the business. Soon after, a local IT firm hired him as a product designer, at just 13 years old, and he began homeschooling.<\/p>\n

He might regret stepping away from his internet stardom given the recent boom of the creator economy, but Bisevac is putting those same storytelling skills to work with Buena. His goal: make property ownership accessible to the younger generation\u2014something like Robinhood for real estate.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur generation invests in ETFs, stocks, crypto, but we’re missing the residential real estate part in our investment portfolios because we don’t know how to do it,\u201d he says. \u201cThe broader vision with Buena is to become this end-to-end platform for people where you come to us to find an apartment you like, you buy it through us, we finance it for you, we manage it for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, the new funding will fuel expansion across Germany, with plans to land in the U.S. next, where the housing market is valued at some $50 trillion.<\/p>\n

More next week,<\/p>\n

Zoya, Alex and Alexandra<\/p>\n

Can A Chatbot Be Your Therapist? Casper\u2019s Neil Parikh Launches A New $93 Million-Backed Startup To Try<\/p>\n

Daniel Cahn (left) and Neil Parikh (right), cofounders of Slingshot AI.<\/p>\n

courtesy of slingshot<\/p>\n

Neil Parikh\u2019s first startup, Casper, made sleep as easy as clicking a few buttons and getting a mattress delivered to your door. Now he wants to make getting therapy just as accessible. Parikh’s latest venture, Slingshot AI, launched a chatbot that\u2019s designed to replicate the experience of talking to a human therapist. Can it work, and why not just use ChatGPT, if so? Find out more here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On Our Radar<\/p>\n

-It\u2019s been six months since tens of thousands of federal employees began losing jobs due to DOGE budget cuts. What was meant to streamline the government and increase efficiency quickly turned into confusion and chaos across many federal agencies. “DOGE started to make itself known, it became a very strange, paranoid, alienating experience,” Egan Reich, who resigned from his Department of Labor position in April, told Business Insider. “It became clear they really wanted people gone.” He\u2019s not the only one with bitter feelings. (Business Insider<\/a>) <\/p>\n

-Are we living amidst the second coming of Tyler Haney? The Outdoor Voices founder and 2016 Under 30 Retail & Ecommerce alum<\/a>\u2014who was ousted in 2020 and went on to build two other companies: TYB, a web 3 platform; and Joggy, a sports drink\u2014is seemingly back in the drivers seat. The startup deleted all TikTok and Instagram posts and now follows just one Instagram account: @ty_haney. (Inc.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

-Gen Z is looking for community, and they know the office is one place to get it. While it\u2019s true that only 6% of the young cohort prefers to work from the office all the time (only millennials are more opposed, with just 4% preferring in-office), they\u2019re actually the most likely to want to come in at least sometimes. 71% of Gen Zers say hybrid is their ideal environment. The loneliness they feel while WFH, plus the inability to learn from more experienced coworkers, appear to be major reasons. (Gallup<\/a>)<\/p>\n

One Minute with Autumn-Kyoko Cushman<\/p>\n

We\u2019re bringing you the scoop on a new Under 30 community member. Up this week: 2025 Under 30 Healthcare lister<\/a> Autumn-Kyoko Cushman, cofounder of ShiftRx\u2014a digital marketplace that connects healthcare facilities with clinicians to fill staffing gaps.<\/p>\n

The following has been lightly edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n

How did you get the inspiration for ShiftRx? My cofounder and I were burned-out clinicians. I spent five years in the Navy as a nurse, working 12-hour clinical shifts during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Eventually, I left and began researching cancer clinical trials at the National Institutes of Health. After that, I thought I was ready to leave healthcare until my mom was diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer. Even with my healthcare connections, advocating for her as a patient was a nightmare. That experience made me realize how broken the system really is and I got pissed off.<\/p>\n

I quit my job, liquidated my savings, and roped in my best friend Leann, who was working as a pharmacy tech at CVS at the time. We knew someone had to address the staffing crisis, and we thought, \u201cWhy not us?\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s one lesson you would go back and tell yourself when first starting as a founder? You are capable of doing anything. It is definitely rooted in delusion. Leann and I genuinely believed we could fix healthcare as two 27-year-olds. The older you get, the more you realize that no one really knows what they\u2019re doing. We didn\u2019t have all the answers, but we had passion\u2014and that was enough to start.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s one thing you can\u2019t live without? My assistant Ashley. I love her\u2014she\u2019s so freaking funny and keeps me sane. I stole her from another company five years ago, and she\u2019s by far my most valuable employee. When I\u2019m in and out of meetings, working 100- to 120-hour weeks and barely sleeping or eating, she\u2019s the one taking care of me. She\u2019s the lock screen on my phone. I just love her. I also can\u2019t live without my AirPods.<\/p>\n

What does a day in your life currently look like? I get out of bed, make my bed, go on a 30-minute walk, and then do a 45-minute run\u2014usually while calling Ashley, who briefs me on my day. Then I get on the phone with my cofounder. I like taking calls while running because it keeps me running longer. After that, I make breakfast and head into the office.<\/p>\n

I try to front-load all my meetings between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m.\u2014I\u2019m usually in 40 to 60 hours of meetings a week. I do my deep work between 4 p.m. and 10 p.m. with a brief intermission for dinner. I end the day with stretching and 20 to 30 minutes of reading\u2014whether it\u2019s a book, article, newsletter or clinical research paper.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your favorite AI tool? I\u2019m addicted to Superhuman, which is basically AI for emails. The instant intros and predictive text features are fantastic.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s something on your bucket list? I\u2019d love to swim with orcas. There\u2019s a Norwegian university that runs expeditions studying how orcas interact with humans in their natural environments, and I\u2019m desperate to go. I could talk for 30 minutes about how intelligent and fascinating they are.<\/p>\n

Who is someone\u2014dead or alive\u2014that you would love to have coffee with? Anna Wintour. She\u2019s such a trailblazer and forward thinker, taking Vogue from the print to the \u201c.com\u201d era. She\u2019s also just a genius, setting these cyclical fashion trends that move with the times. She\u2019s not in my industry, but I think it\u2019s so cool to learn from people that are incredible operators in their own industries.<\/p>\n

What does ShiftRx\u2019s next chapter look like? The next chapter looks like fixing healthcare operations, improving patient outcomes, and automating tasks clinicians shouldn\u2019t have to worry about. We\u2019re stepping into the next phase of AI-native applications to improve the patient experience\u2014making sure clinicians can focus solely on patient care.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Think this is nice? It\u2019s a version of the weekly Under 30 newsletter and would be even better…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[19472,19469,45,49,48,19470,137,19468,3234,19471,19473,15195,2927,19474],"class_list":{"0":"post-23900","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entrepreneurship","8":"tag-20vc","9":"tag-buena","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-din-bisevac","14":"tag-entrepreneurship","15":"tag-forbes-30-under-30","16":"tag-funding","17":"tag-google-ventures","18":"tag-harry-stebbings","19":"tag-neil-parikh","20":"tag-startups","21":"tag-ty-haney"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}