instep.ai raises £900k pre-seed to recover missed inbound enquiries with conversational AI
This article covers instep.ai, a proptech startup, which has raised £900,000 in a pre-seed funding round led by Fuel Ventures to roll out an AI assistant that aims to capture missed inbound enquiries for estate agents. The funding is intended to accelerate sales, expand national pilots and develop the assistant’s automation capabilities to help estate agency branches recover missed leads and address resourcing pressures across the UK.
instep.ai, a proptech startup, has raised £900,000 in a pre-seed funding round led by Fuel Ventures to roll out an AI assistant that aims to capture missed inbound enquiries for estate agents. The funding will be used to accelerate sales, expand national pilots with large and mid-sized agencies, and further develop the assistant’s automation capabilities — a practical response to persistent resourcing pressures across UK estate agency branches.
Why it matters
Estate agencies routinely lose leads when branch teams cannot handle peak or out-of-hours inbound demand. instep.ai says its assistant, Ella, helps firms recover missed opportunities without increasing headcount. The company estimates that branches using Ella capture an average of 11 additional valuation opportunities per month, which it translates into roughly £45,000–£50,000 of incremental annual fees per branch (rising to £180,000–£190,000 in higher-value London markets). If accurate at scale, those figures point to a direct revenue impact rather than marketing-driven growth.
The funding is notable because it targets a specific operational gap — inbound enquiry handling — rather than broader lead generation or CRM replacement. That focus could make adoption easier for agencies looking for immediate efficiency gains.
Inside the product
Ella is an omnichannel conversational assistant that operates across voice, web chat, WhatsApp and email. According to instep.ai, it qualifies leads, books valuations and viewings, and handles routine enquiries 24/7, integrating with agents’ existing CRM and scheduling systems. The platform is trained on thousands of real property conversations and is positioned as a frontline tool to capture warm inbound demand that would otherwise go unanswered.
The company highlights integration and low-friction deployment as selling points: by slotting into existing workflows, Ella aims to increase lead capture and data collection without adding operational complexity or headcount.
Who are the investors?
The round was led by Fuel Ventures, with participation from angel investors. Fuel Ventures is an early-stage UK venture fund that has deployed over £246 million across more than 210 companies since 2014. The firm’s portfolio includes early bets on companies such as Volt, ContentCal and Capdesk, each of which reached notable exits or valuations: Volt grew into a prominent European fintech, ContentCal was acquired by Adobe, and Capdesk was bought by Carta. These examples illustrate Fuel’s focus on founder-led, high-growth SaaS businesses and its experience supporting commercial scale-up.
In the announcement, Mark Pearson, Founder of Fuel Ventures, said:
instep.ai is addressing a clear and costly inefficiency in the estate agency market. The team has demonstrated strong early traction, a deep understanding of their customers, and a product that delivers immediate, measurable value. Reid and Patrick combine exceptional product leadership with real industry insight, and we’re excited to support them as they scale the platform and redefine how agents manage inbound demand.
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Founder perspective
In the announcement, Reid Cockrell, Co-Founder and CEO of instep.ai, said:
Estate agents are already generating huge volumes of inbound demand, but too much of it is being missed because teams simply can’t be available everywhere, all the time. We built instep.ai to solve that exact problem – ensuring every enquiry is captured, qualified and progressed, without adding pressure or headcount. This funding allows us to scale faster, work with more agencies across the UK, and continue building technology that directly impacts revenue and operational efficiency.
Cockrell’s background includes nine years in product management with senior roles at Honu, Red Sift and Rightmove, where he worked on SaaS products and platform growth. Co-founder Patrick Littemore is the former CEO of Marsh & Parsons and brings sector networks and agency operations experience. The combination of product and agency expertise is presented as a driver of early adoption among customers under operational strain.
The bigger picture
The deal comes as UK estate agencies face rising demand, tighter teams and pressure to digitise customer interactions. Tools that automate routine inbound handling are increasingly being trialled as a way to protect conversion rates and improve response times without proportional headcount increases. The instep.ai funding round reflects continued interest from proptech investors in targeted automation solutions that offer measurable commercial returns.
For the wider UK and European ecosystem, the round underlines two trends: investors continuing to back vertical AI plays with clear unit economics, and founders pairing domain expertise with product experience to accelerate adoption in conservative, regulated markets such as real estate. As instep.ai moves into national pilots, its progress will be a useful case study in whether conversational AI can materially reduce missed leads across estate agency networks.
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