TORONTO, CANADA – February 15, 2023 – Autohost, a guest screening platform for short and long-term rentals, announced today that it has secured pre-seed funding from Mistral Venture Partners. The funding will be used to grow their teams across sales, customer success, product and software development as they continue to scale the company and keep up with growth.
In 2016, co-founders Ela Mezhiborsky and Anton Zilberberg launched a successful property management company in Toronto. The goal was to offer luxury and hassle-free accommodations for fellow travelers. But as the company scaled, they dealt with many incidents caused by bad reservations: out-of-control parties, property damage, massive cleaning bills and fraudulent bookings. The tipping point came when a criminal gang hijacked one of their properties, bringing in illicit drugs and automatic weapons.
With no available solutions in the short-term rental industry, Ela and Anton joined forces with cybersecurity expert and long-time friend Roy Firestein, and the trio founded and built Autohost.
“We are thrilled to have Mistral Venture Partners lead our pre-seed round,” said Roy Firestein, Autohost’s CEO. “We are profitable and have bootstrapped the company to millions in ARR without external investors, but Mistral’s experience and resources will be invaluable as we continue to scale the company.”
“Autohost’s deep market insights of property managers and impressive traction caught our attention,” said Mistral Venture Partners’ Raif Barbaros, “But once we spoke to some of their customers and heard how critical Autohost was to their business, we had to get involved. We are excited to support the team in their efforts to get the company to the next level.”
Cybersecurity veterans Eldon Sprickerhoff (Founder of eSentire) and Brian O’Higgins (Founder of Entrust) participated in the round, and Richard Reiner (Founder of Assurent and President of PasswordBox) joined as an advisor.
About Autohost
Autohost is a guest screening platform for property managers of short and long-term rentals. The platform provides identity verification, background check, and behavioral analysis for fraud, among other capabilities.
Media inquiries: press@autohost.ai
About Mistral Venture Partners
Mistral Venture Partners is one of the few established seed-stage venture capital firms in Canada. Led by veteran start-up founders, the firm invests across Enterprise software, FinTech and eCommerce marketplaces and has a track record of successful investments in companies such as CloudChekr, Ritual, Symend, Rewind and Ceipal.
Media inquiries: raif@mistral.vc