Cozy CEO and co-founder Gino Zahnd.
Cozy CEO and co-founder Gino Zahnd.

Portland-based Cozy today announced an $8.45 million funding round that will help the startup grow its property rental management platform.

American Family Ventures, the VC arm of American Family Insurance, led the Series B round, which included participation from all Series A investors, including Social Capital, General Catalyst Partners, Seven Peaks Ventures, angel investor Jason Calacanis, and others.

Total funding for Cozy is now past $18 million.

“It’s the next step in our mission to bring peace of mind to renters, property managers, and landlords everywhere,” Cozy CEO and co-founder Gino Zahnd wrote in a blog post. “This capital will be used to expand the scope of our offerings, and to build out key new areas of the company. We also see profitability on the horizon, and our expectation is this capital infusion will allow us to be aggressive with growth while still achieving the goal of long-term sustainability.”

Cozy helps landlords in all 50 U.S. states screen tenants, check credit, and collect rent money online — both from desktop and mobile. The company offers its service for free to both landlords and tenants, but does charge for credit reports and background checks.

cozy-logo-yellowThere are more than 100,000 Cozy-managed properties in 11,500 zip codes across the U.S., with more than 60,000 property managers and landlords using the service. Cozy grew by 900 percent in 2015, and has tripled its business this year, Zahnd noted.

Features like document signing and storage, income and expense tracking, and mobile apps are “coming soon,” according to the company’s website.

“Before Cozy launched in June 2013, there simply wasn’t a service to help independent landlords or small property managers run their rental businesses,” he wrote. “We’ve created that market, despite spending very little money on marketing or customer acquisition.”

Cozy, which originally launched in San Francisco but re-located its HQ to Portland in 2013 because it was easier to hire engineers, employs 25. There are currently eight open positions on the company’s site. Slack co-founder Stewart Butterfield is among its board of directors.

Editor’s note: This story was updated to reflect that Butterfield did not participate in the Series B round.

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