Former Deliveroo seniors launch Rightmove rival start-up that’s free for agents
Jitty uses artificial intelligence to read floor plans, photographs and descriptions of homes better than other portals, it is claimed.
Three former executives of Deliveroo have raised £2 million for their Rightmove rival start-up from Gradient Ventures, Google’s Artificial Intelligence fund.
Jitty is the brainchild of Co-Founders Graham Paterson (main picture, middle), James Storer (left) and Daniel Cooper (right) and uses large-language model technologies and computer-vision to read property floor plans and understand photographs and descriptions of homes.
NO ESTATE AGENT FEES
Sky News revealed on Sunday that unlike many players in the online property search market, Jitty will not charge estate agents fees to list properties or receive enquiries.
As well as Gradient Ventures other backers of the Jitty funding round included big-name venture capital funds’ scouting arms such as Sequoia and Atomico.
Explaining the move and the name on LinkedIn, Jitty Chief Executive Paterson, says: “A few months ago James, Daniel and I started working on a better way for people to discover and buy homes.
“We’re just starting to talk about it publicly, and first up we wanted to introduce our name. “Coming up with it was hard.
“Myself and James locked ourselves in a room for a day, and just chatted about what we’re doing and why. We wrote down any words that jumped out as powerful and important.
“We talked about walking to friends homes when we were young, and how those homes still hold so many memories for us even though our friends don’t live there any more.
METAPHORICAL
“We spoke about the passage between homes, literal (alleyways) and metaphorical (the move itself).
“James described an alley as a ‘jitty’, which I’d never heard before. Apparently it’s a midlands term for an alleyway, which sounded very cute. It stuck.
“We’ve already got 1,500 on our waitlist and there’s a link in comments to join up if interesting.”
The Neg reported in June how proptech entrepreneur Kae Travis is aiming to make another splash into the estate agency market with the launch of Find Properties – a portal that will be developed and controlled by estate agents.
Deliveroo – a service that came from nowhere, mostly delivers junk food at all times of the day and night by people not doing a proper job to people who cant be bothered to get of their ****’s when that is the last thing they need to be avoiding. Deliveroo reminds me of the Queen song Bicycle Race “…I want to ride my bicycle…” Perhaps more apt for Jitty “Another one Bites the Dust ..and another ones gone and another one gone..” Good luck with knocking Rightmove of its perch.
If agents are not being asked to pay then how will it be funded? Will the site be littered with advertising? How does AI being able to read a floor plan or ‘understand’ a photograph actually help the agent or the buyer? Tell us more …
”raised £2 million for their Rightmove rival start-up” – that says it all – not a chance to compete with Rightmove.
‘JITTY’ – Sounds perfect 😵