£130m funding buys 250+ London homes to offer rent-to-own paths to deposits
This article covers Keyzy, a proptech startup, securing a property company funding facility of more than £130 million from Crayon Partners to buy over 250 homes across Greater London over the next 18 months. The deal backs Keyzy’s rent-to-own model, which aims to convert renters' payments into a deposit and shorten the path to homeownership for those priced out of the market.
Keyzy, a proptech startup, has secured a property company funding facility worth more than £130 million from Crayon Partners to buy over 250 homes across Greater London over the next 18 months. The deal backs the company’s rent-to-own model — a product that aims to convert years of rent into a deposit and, the firm says, shorten the path to homeownership for renters priced out of the market.
Why it matters
Housing affordability in London remains acute: research cited by Keyzy notes it can take up to 14 years to save a typical 10 percent deposit in the capital. With mortgage rates higher than in recent years and rents continuing to rise, alternative routes to ownership are receiving attention from policymakers, investors and renters alike.
Keyzy’s model attempts to tackle two common barriers at once: the lack of deposit and weak credit histories. By fixing rents, agreeing a purchase price up front and reporting rental payments to credit reference agencies, the company aims to give residents both a clearer route to a mortgage and documented credit performance during a lease.
Inside the product
Keyzy offers two-year leases with a pre-agreed purchase price at the start of the tenancy. Residents can apply up to 100 percent of their rent payments toward their deposit if they choose to buy at the end of the lease. The company also operates Klink, a home-buying coaching app designed to build financial habits aligned with mortgage readiness.
Key product features summarised:
- Fixed rent and a locked-in purchase price for the two-year term.
- Credit reporting of rental payments to help build a track record with credit reference agencies.
- Klink coaching to support budgeting and mortgage readiness. Keyzy says its initial cohorts are already transitioning from renting to buying using the accumulated rent payments, which the company presents as an early validation of the model.
Who are the investors?
The facility is provided by Crayon Partners, a real estate private equity firm that specialises in alternative living sectors. The arrangement is an OpCo-PropCo structure in which Crayon’s PropCo provides the capital to acquire homes while Keyzy operates the rental and customer-facing business. Keyzy and Crayon describe the structure as the first of its kind in Europe and say it is intended to be scalable and able to bring additional capital partners into the model over time.
The headline terms disclosed include the more-than-£130 million facility overall and an initial tranche of about £30 million of property acquisitions planned for Q4 2025. Crayon’s involvement funds the near-term purchase of over 250 homes across Greater London, with an operational focus on West and North-West London neighbourhoods to start.
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Founder perspective
In the announcement, Simon Groll, Co-Founder of Keyzy, said:
Our rent-to-own model gives renters a realistic path to homeownership at a time when traditional routes are increasingly out of reach
In the announcement, Jeremy Matallah, Co-Founder of Keyzy, said:
We’re ready to make large-scale acquisitions across London and bring a more diverse range of homes to our applicants
In the announcement, Paul Coates, Director at Keyzy, said:
Homeownership has become increasingly out of reach for too many people By combining rent-to-own with practical financial guidance, we’re providing a route for renters who otherwise wouldn’t be able to secure a mortgage
The bigger picture
This deal sits at the intersection of proptech innovation and housing finance. Rent-to-own has been used in various forms internationally but remains a niche in the UK mainstream market. The use of an OpCo-PropCo structure reflects a growing investor appetite for build-to-rent and alternative living strategies that separate operating risk from property ownership.
For policymakers and housing stakeholders, such structures raise familiar questions about consumer protection, transparent pricing and long-term affordability. For investors, the model offers a way to scale assets while letting an operator manage the customer-facing, credit-building activity.
The Keyzy–Crayon transaction also points to wider investor interest in housing solutions that combine technology, tenancy services and credit-building mechanisms. It will be worth watching whether more proptech investors and institutional capital back similar structures across the UK and Europe as demand for homeownership pathways continues to outstrip supply.
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