Full-Time
AI-driven proptech platform for multifamily leasing
No salary listed
New York, NY, USA
In Person
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Grotto AI provides an AI-driven vertical SaaS platform for the multifamily real estate sector to reduce vacancy loss. Its Guidance product analyzes renter data in real time to help property managers with leasing, renewals, and tenant engagement, aiming to convert more leads and anticipate departures while measuring ROI. It works by collecting renter signals and leasing data to guide actions that improve occupancy, including leasing automation and renewal management. It differentiates itself with founder-led AI product expertise (Stanford, EvolutionIQ) and a built-in ROI metric, focused on the entire tenant journey.
Company Size
11-50
Company Stage
Seed
Total Funding
$10M
Headquarters
New York City, New York
Founded
2025
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Grotto named Overall Real Estate Closing Innovation of the Year. Blog Posts August 18, 2026 Grotto Team PropTech Breakthrough is a global market intelligence and recognition platform, with an awards program designed to "recognize the top technology companies, solutions and products in the real estate technology industry today." In their 5th annual awards announcement this year they selected one winner per category, judged on innovation, performance, functionality, value, and impact. At Grotto, Grotto, Inc. is proud to be selected as the 2026 Real Estate Closing Innovation of the year. Grotto was founded to help multifamily owners/operators address annual vacancy loss, and ultimately, Grotto, Inc. do this by increasing leasing conversion and speed to close. "U.S. apartment owners lose an estimated $30 billion a year in lost rent revenue alone. If we can help operators reduce vacancy by even a few days per unit, the balance-sheet impact is massive." Nick Deveau, CEO and Co-founder of Grotto AI Most early AI in proptech has gone toward getting prospects in the door. Teams automated outbound, put chatbots on their websites, and added AI phone coverage after hours. That widened the top of the funnel, but the lease is still won in the human parts of the journey: the call and the tour. Those are the moments Grotto was built for. Grotto's AI Tour Coaching has four main components, and each one helps contribute to the close: * Prep. Before the tour starts, Grotto puts everything the team already knows about the prospect at agents' fingertips so they can personalize the tour. If the prospect mentioned that they have a dog and want a short commute on the booking call, the agent will know to show the dog park and to emphasise proximity to the highway. * Record. Grotto records each tour, so the agent doesn't have to memorize details for the CRM. Across tours and over time, these recordings become a rich source of data for management to analyze team performance and gain insight into renter preferences. * Coach. The interaction gets automatically scored against the property's tour scorecard, and the agent gets immediate feedback on how the tour went, from the warm welcome, to asking for the application. * Assist. At the end of the tour, Grotto populates the guest card and any other on-site reporting. The follow up is automatically drafted based on the things that actually came up on the tour. Each of these components helps drive conversion. At Hillpointe, an NMHC top 10 developer, Grotto helped the team increase tour conversion by 50%. One key element of Grotto's tour coaching is that it doesn't force agents into using a single stale script. As Lexi DeLeon, Resident Experience Manager at Hillpointe noted: "It trained me in ways to ask [for the close]. Soft closing, warm closing... and it personalized it to me. It didn't feel disingenuous. It felt like it was actually me speaking." Lexi DeLeon, Resident Experience Manager, Hillpointe As Grotto's CEO put it, "We built a tool to support people in showing up as the best versions of themselves." Top leasing agents close at 2x the rate of median performers. Grotto learns what top behavior looks like, then scales it across your portfolio. That's why Proptech Breakthrough chose Grotto as the 2026 Overall Real Estate Closing Innovation of the Year. If you want to see how Grotto can help your team close more leases, book a time here: grotto.ai/demo. Thank you to the PropTech Breakthrough team. More Stories
Today, Grotto AI announced a $10 million seed round to tackle one of housing's most quantifiable problems: the $500B of property value lost due to vacancy. T...
Grotto AI raises $10M to tackle $500B vacancy crisis with human-first real estate AI. Daniel Levi Posted On February 19, 2026 Vacant apartments are costing property owners an estimated $500 billion in lost value. Grotto AI believes the fix isn't more automation. It's better human conversations. The New York-based AI startup announced a $10 million seed round led by ICONIQ, the same investor that recently co-led Anthropic's $30 billion Series G. For ICONIQ, which typically writes larger checks at later stages, backing Grotto at this stage signals strong conviction. Advisors and angel investors include David Dear of BILT and a former Equity Residential executive, Caren Maio of Get100 and Funnel Leasing, Avi Dorfman of Compass, and Asymmetric Capital Partners. At a time when companies across industries are racing to replace front-line workers with AI agents, Grotto AI is making a different bet. Leasing, the company argues, is not a script-reading exercise. It is a human interaction that directly affects revenue. While others replace humans, Grotto AI raises $10M to prove human leasing wins. Grotto's platform analyzes leasing conversations and identifies what actually drives conversion at each property. It then delivers real-time guidance during calls and tours, followed by post-call coaching. The goal is simple: help agents build rapport, handle objections with confidence, and close more leases. The system is already live with major operators, including Weidner Apartment Homes, which manages more than 70,000 units. Early customers say the results appear where they matter most: on revenue statements. The founders bring a track record that investors recognize. Nick Deveau and Ben Epstein previously worked together at EvolutionIQ, where they helped build the technology that led to a $730 million acquisition in 2024, one of the first large exits of the modern AI cycle. Deveau trained in AI at Stanford and has spent nearly a decade building AI-native SaaS for Fortune 500 companies. Epstein focused on infrastructure for machine learning teams and most recently led EvolutionIQ's internal LLM platform. Tengbo Li, General Partner at ICONIQ, said the firm invested after seeing the founders execute before. "We had the privilege of working with Nick and Ben at EvolutionIQ and saw firsthand their ability to build and execute world-class B2B vertical AI products," Li said. "What drew us to Grotto AI is that same combination of technical depth and commercial focus. We believe that they're solving one of the most quantifiable problems in multifamily by driving real, measurable revenue growth. Grotto AI delivers results you can see on a P&L, not just a dashboard." Grotto's early research may be its most interesting asset. The company built its initial models with statisticians and AI researchers from Carnegie Mellon and Stanford, analyzing hundreds of thousands of leasing interactions. The data challenged common industry assumptions. Speed and scripts mattered less than interpersonal signals. Agents who initiated moments of laughter were 48% more likely to convert a lead into a signed lease. Agents who demonstrated genuine curiosity saw a 35% lift in conversion. Standard practices, such as asking for a tour or pushing an application, delivered only a 14% lift. "The industry has it backwards," Deveau said. "Typically, leads are escalated to humans based on complexity - if they ever reach a human at all. In reality, our data shows that we should actually be escalating to humans when intent and warmth can change the outcome. If 2025 was the year of replacing humans, 2026 is about unlocking what only they can do." The message is clear. AI does not need to replace leasing teams. It can make them sharper, more aware, and more effective in the moments that decide revenue. Real estate has always been a people business. Grotto AI is betting that even in the age of automation, that truth still holds. - Advertisement - Discover more Startup funding news AI security analytics Tech company work reviews Venture capital reports Top startup directory Daily news digest Startup job boards