Jalin Somaiya has been appointed as the new Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Property Partner. He joins from Google, where he has spent the last seven years in various senior pan-regional positions in Operations, Strategy and Marketing.
Property Partner, which lets users invest in residential property at the click of a button, is a financial technology company that allows retail investors to buy shares in individual residential properties via ‘crowdfunding’. Investors get a monthly rental income – as well as benefitting from capital growth – in direct proportion to their ownership of each property.
The company, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, also enables investors to exit their shares at market value five years in. They can also sell their shares at any time on Property Partner’s secondary exchange.
In September 2014, Property Partner publicised a £1.25m seed funding round led by Octopus Ventures, which also included leading ‘accelerator’ Seedcamp, Jon Moulton (founder of Better Capital and Alchemy) and Ed Wray (co-founder of Betfair and director of Funding Circle). Property Partner launched to a private audience last week and, in early 2015, it will open to the wider public.
During his time at Google, Jalin oversaw the pan-regional launch of Chrome and a major early foray by the search engine into above-the-line advertising. For the past two years, he held the role of pan-regional Head of Operations and Strategy for DoubleClick, its fast-growing ‘ad tech’ business.
As well as the experience he gained from Google, Jalin has also long been active in the London start-up community. He sits on advisory boards and is a non-executive director at Mitoo, in addition to being a mentor and speaker on growth.
“Residential property is attractive for its income and capital growth,” Jalin Somaiya said. “But being a landlord is more like running a business than making a simple investment. The asset class is begging for a fresh perspective. Property Partner’s vision — to make residential property as easy to invest in as company stocks, is both inspired and inspiring. It’s a profoundly democratic vision, like Google’s, and I’m absolutely delighted to join Dan and the team as they bring it to life.”
Daniel Gandesha, CEO at Property Partner, added: “Jalin’s a great addition to the team with a rare combination of skills, honed in the unique environment of Google. He’s also very familiar with the challenges start-ups face, especially on the marketing and growth front. His experience honing the operations of a high-growth business unit within Google will be invaluable as we seek to grow Property Partner aggressively in the months and years ahead.”
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