Ten Questions with Federico Gallina, co-founder and CEO at Leasy

"We anticipate a fully integrated ecosystem that goes beyond just rent collection and payment, instead shifting toward solutions offering a comprehensive suite of financial services, including embedded financing and real estate insurance with payment guarantees."

It's funny how work relationships change over time.

I first met Federico Gallina while working at Spanish rentals startup Spotahome. A few years later I am interviewing him about his business, Leasy.

Originally named FidoRent, Leasy is a hyper-efficient platform for large-scale real estate operators to track the status of their properties from rent collection to renovation costs.

I caught up with Federico to get a feel for the landlord-tenant relationship, pivoting, red herring metrics, the growing wave of FinTech solutions for landlords and property managers, and what he thinks about mid-term rental opportunities in Italy and beyond...

What problem does Leasy solve?

Leasy simplifies and redefines rental property finances.

Property operators typically spend 30% of their daily activities on bookkeeping, banking, and rent collection. In Italy, this can cost up to €30,000 in tools and human capital per 100 managed properties.

We aim to eliminate that inefficiency.

Who is your primary audience and what can you tell us about their needs?

Our primary audience consists of large property operators, from property and asset management companies to big private landlords.

We’ve identified our sweet spot with operators managing a portfolio of 100-1,000 rental units, particularly in the mid to long-term rental market. These companies face considerable challenges in scaling their finance and administrative teams whereby adding more units requires additional staff, which leads to inefficiencies and wasted time.

Additionally, two critical areas that are still largely managed manually and are vital to the success of these businesses are:

• Tracking performance at the unit level: This is crucial for understanding the margins of each property, especially when renovations are involved.
• Forecasting cash flow: in such capital-intensive models, the inability to accurately predict costs leaves property operators in the dark, leading to poor decision-making and missed opportunities.

Federico Gallina

How does the business make money?

We generate revenue by charging a subscription fee based on the number of contracts operators upload to the Leasy platform for rent collection and reconciliation.

In the short term, our goal is to offer the software for free, with primary revenue coming from upselling financial services through third-party partners and providing tailored add-on services for our stakeholders—namely, tenants, landlords, and operators.

How is Leasy funded? Will you raise this year?

We raised a $500,000 pre-seed round from a mix of institutional investors such as Techstars, Exor seeds and Casavo.

Additional investment came from business angels with proptech and fintech expertise including Raffaele Terrone, co-founder of Scalapay and one of the first Italian unicorns; Simone Surdi, co-founder of Tabas, a Brazilian-enabled property management company (acquired by Blueground); and Joe Zadeh, ex VP Product at Airbnb.

We are currently in late-stage conversations for an investment round later this year.

Congratulations on passing €1 million in transactions made through Leasy's platform. What other numbers can you share with us?

Out of the total volume transacted on the Leasy platform, we have a 100% collection rate, with 49% of tenants paying their rent in advance (1-5 days before the due date), and 90% of tenants paying within 5 days of their due date.

Considering that we are currently operating in Italy—a country where paying "within the month" is culturally considered not only acceptable but quite normal—this is an indicator that we are doing something positive in terms of strengthening trust and transparency between landlords and tenants.

I remember Leasy back when it was called FidoRent. What is your advice to a founder going through the difficult process of needing to pivot their young business in a new or unexpected direction?

I think that the real key to success is perseverance. If you are persistent enough, sooner or later you will find the 'right path' for you to follow.

It’s a game of trial and error.

Can you give us an example of A) an important metric and B) a ‘red herring’ metric when judging the survivability/longevity of a young, growing business?

Customer retention rate. In the early stages, attracting customers might be easier due to aggressive go-to-market, but the ability to keep those customers coming back is a strong indicator of product-market fit, customer satisfaction, and the likelihood of long-term success.

As for red herrings... revenue without considering profit margins. Revenue becomes deceptive when you have low or negative profit margins, and this may obscure underlying issues such as high customer acquisition costs or excessive operational expenses.

We are seeing more and more FinTech startups providing end-to-end financial services like rent collection and payment. What is the next step for digitization in the industry, especially for the tenant-landlord relationship?

We anticipate a fully integrated ecosystem that goes beyond just rent collection and payment, instead shifting toward solutions offering a comprehensive suite of financial services, including embedded financing and real estate insurance with payment guarantees.

These solutions will not only provide capital for operators and landlords to grow with peace of mind but also offer tenants greater flexibility and options such as tailored financing solutions and transparent payment plans.

For landlords, guaranteed payments reduce the risk of late or missed rent, ensuring a more reliable income stream. For tenants, flexible payment options make it easier to manage finances by spreading out costs more comfortably.

This is what we are building at Leasy.

What products and services are you currently working on?

We are primarily focused on establishing partnerships to integrate new embedded financial services into the Leasy platform. These offerings, similar to what FidoRent previously provided, will now be delivered through our partners.

The services we’re working on include financing options for tenants, landlords, and operators; real estate-related insurance products; and banking.

What is something the industry should spend more time talking about?

The significant shift from short-term to mid-term rentals.

This change is largely driven by a more favourable tax and legislative environment.

Additionally, traditional long-term rentals—where the average lease in Italy used to be 3 to 4 years—are now trending toward mid-term lengths, typically ranging from 6-18 months. It reflects the increasing flexibility and mobility of today's generations; as people become more transient, rental markets worldwide are adapting to meet these new demands.

From a business perspective, many companies that operated under the rent-to-rent model—renting properties long-term to sublease them short-term—either went out of business or transitioned to mid-term rentals during and right after COVID-19.

However, this transition has revealed a gap in the market: most existing software solutions are designed for short-term rentals and don’t adequately address the specific needs of mid-term rental businesses.

The industry needs to focus on developing tools tailored specifically for this growing segment.