See how 99.co plans to pacify exasperated house-hunters in Singapore

Tired of bogus listings?

Fake listings and dodgy agents are just some of the things that house-hunters have to through before finding their dream place. Despite the availability of many apps that promise to make apartment-hunting more bearable, there seems to be a missing link. Jumping on the bandwagon is 99.co, a Singapore startup that plans to meet the needs of exasperated house-hunters in Singapore.

In an exclusive interview, 99.co's representative said the startup was set up in order to make the apartment rental process an honest, transparent and delightful experience for the tenants as well as landlords or agents.

"Finding a place to live is one of the most important, most expensive, and most tedious decisions one has to make.

Amongst the 99.co team, we have rented apartments over the past 2 decades, so we understand the pain and agony that one have to go through, such as fake listings by dodgy agents, inaccurate photos or insufficient information on the property and neighborhood," he said.

The trick is simple. 99.co offers its elegant map-based search and presentation of properties with listings vetted for quality and accuracy. Apartment seekers can see the distance of their prospect units from MRT stations and calculate the travel time. It also has a 1-click scheduling of viewings on behalf of renters.

99.co's founding team is made up of Darius Cheung, Ruiwen Chua, Anuj Bheda and Conor McLaughlin. Darius is a seasoned and distinguished Singaporean entrepreneur who founded tenCube, a mobile security company that was acquired by security giant McAfee in 2010. Ruiwen is a self-proclaimed hacker at heart.

He previously founded Hackerspace.sg and SquareCrumbs. Anuj debuted as a hacker at Chalkboard, and subsequently helped the non-profit Teach For India advance its cause with technology. Conor was part of the team at BillPin, before co-founding 99.co. He was also previously with Pixar and Lucasfilm.

COMPANY PROFILE

Name of the Company: 99.co
Founders: Darius Cheung, Ruiwen Chua, Anuj Bheda, Saurabh Mandar and Conor McLaughlin
Website: 99.co
Major Investors: 500 Startups, East Ventures, Fenox VC and Golden Gate Ventures
Total Funding at hand: S$700,000
Start of Operation: 2013