Sipho Simela, along with his friends and family, were welcomed to Stamford on March 28 with a ribbon cutting ceremony for Matrix Rental Solutions. Simela is a first-generation Long Islander born to parents from Zimbabwe and his startup is seeking to develop a “common application”for rentals akin to the common application now used by many U.S. colleges and universities.
“Matrix is a rental application management platform that sits on top of a universal application. The idea is a single application with a single screening for the tenant.”Simela explained. “But, ultimately and most importantly, Matrix uses an ability to pay scoring model that drives more inclusive underwriting by rather than looking purely at FICO credit scoring, we look at FICO in addition to a number of supporting factors like assets, income, and employment.”
Simela’s Matrix is a lean company with ambitions to disrupt a major industry. Matrix is seeking to revolutionize the rental market by streamlining one of the most hated parts of the process for both renters and landlords: applications.
“Just as much as a tenant hates filling out the apps, owners really don’t like reading them,”Simela said. With Matrix, he said that landlords can expect faster access to data, in part through digitization of paper forms, fraud protection, and higher speed. AI will help facilitate this entire process, making it increasingly trustworthy for all stake holders.
Simela said he was driven to develop the app partially because of his own experiences during the Covid pandemic. He and his family moved several times before settling in Greenwich, seeking large space in which to raise their two daughters. He decided to launch Matrix after coming to understand the state’s business scene and the opportunity for new fintech firms.
The ribbon cutting ceremony was held at the Serendipity Labs Coworking space where Simela established his office. Ribbon cuttings within coworking spaces are not traditional, but neither is Matrix Rental Solutions.
“Matrix Rental Solutions provides a fully digital experience that can be completed in minutes from your mobile, tablet, or desktop to find a new home sooner,”Stamford Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Heather Cavanagh told those gathered for the ceremony. “You explained to me how we could do multiple searches looking for that perfect rental and it’s a one-time fee as opposed to filling out different creditor applications multiple times.”
“We can’t thank you enough for bringing this innovative solution to the rental process to help support our economy so that we can get more people into quality housing in our city,”said Mayor Caroline Simmons. “This is a top challenge we’re facing right now. Cities across the country are facing a lack of affordable and workforce housing and it is not helped by just how cumbersome the process can be. Thank you for choosing Stamford, for hiring here, for bringing this incredibly innovative fintech company that has housing solutions to our city.”
Simela plans to expand the business to up to three full time employees in Stamford, with plans to hire interns in the short term, with his other team members located throughout the country. While his ambitions are wide, Simela is forthright about what is required to achieve them. In addition to document scanning technology built on experience he had with prior employers, he is confident that by significantly reducing the turn around time for applications from three-to-five days that Matrix Rental Solutions will become a must-have for renters and landlords both.
“I was once told that if you wanted to build disruptive technology and be better than the incumbent, and to be adopted, you have to be at least a hundred times better,”Simela said. “So that’s exactly what we did. Our median average processing time is about 15 minutes for our applications”.
