Cobblestone

What do they actually do

Cobblestone provides software that helps large landlords and property operators reduce rent delinquency and application fraud. It centralizes leasing rules, automates income and document checks, and orchestrates signals from screening and fraud tools so approvals are more consistent and faster across a portfolio product overview.

Teams use Cobblestone to enforce standard criteria across properties, flag risky applications (e.g., synthetic identity, doctored pay stubs), and maintain audit-ready decision trails with controls for overrides. It integrates into existing leasing workflows and centralized leasing models rather than replacing the core property‑management system centralized leasing workflow automation.

Who are their target customer(s)

• Institutional landlords / REITs: They need to curb application fraud that drives bad debt and lowers NOI, and want a single system to reduce delinquency consistently across many properties YC profile product overview.
• Centralized leasing operations (third‑party managers or centralized teams): They struggle to enforce uniform screening criteria and workflows across remote properties, leading to inconsistent approvals and variable delinquency outcomes centralized leasing.
• High‑volume on‑site leasing teams and leasing managers: Manual reviews and income verification consume time, slowing move‑ins and increasing vacancy days when screening is slow or error‑prone product overview workflow automation.
• Risk, compliance, and audit teams at property operators: They need auditable, consistent decision trails and structured controls for overrides to avoid regulatory issues and prove fair, repeatable screening workflow automation.
• Underwriting / resident‑screening specialists focused on fraud detection: Synthetic identity, income, and document fraud evade standard checks; they want automated, comprehensive fraud signals to cut false negatives and reduce downstream collections product overview.

How would they acquire their first 10, 50, and 100 customers

• First 10: Founder‑led, paid pilots with 10 institutional landlords/REITs via warm intros; deeply instrument delinquency/fraud baselines, deliver bespoke integrations and audit trails, and produce measurable before/after references YC profile product overview.
• First 50: Turn pilot results into case studies and run targeted enterprise outbound to centralized leasing teams and third‑party managers; add co‑selling and referrals with screening vendors and property managers to win multi‑property deals centralized leasing workflow automation.
• First 100: Productize onboarding (self‑serve trials, templated integrations, automated data ingest) and shift to an AE + inside‑sales motion for mid‑market portfolios; scale channel partnerships and a CS function focused on time‑to‑value and compliance outcomes product overview workflow automation.

What is the rough total addressable market

Top-down context:

The U.S. rental market includes roughly 48 million rental units across all property types, with a large institutional and professionally managed multifamily subset RubyHome. The NMHC Top 50 owners alone control about 2.5 million apartments, indicating a sizable institutional core segment Wolf Street summarizing NMHC 50 and top managers like Greystar oversee nearly 1 million units NAA.

Bottom-up calculation:

If Cobblestone targets ~12 million professionally managed/institutional multifamily units and charges ~$2.50 per unit per month for delinquency reduction and automation, annual TAM ≈ 12M × $30 = ~$360M.

Assumptions:

• Focus is on professionally managed/institutional multifamily (a subset of ~48M U.S. rental units), including portfolios owned by large owners and units managed by major third‑party managers RubyHome Wolf Street/NMHC 50 NAA.
• Pricing modeled as a workflow/fraud‑orchestration subscription at ~$1.50–$3.00 per unit per month layered alongside existing screening tools.
• Initial geography is U.S.; international expansion not included.

Who are some of their notable competitors

• RealPage: Enterprise property‑management provider with resident screening and an AI‑driven risk product that embeds screening within leasing workflows; competes on dataset scale and being part of operators’ core stack RealPage.
• Yardi: Major PMS vendor that has expanded identity/income/fraud capabilities (e.g., Nova Credit collaboration), offering an all‑in‑one stack where screening is native to leasing flows Yardi.
• Experian (Tenant Screening / RentBureau): Credit bureau offering tenant screening, eviction data, and rental‑payment history (RentBureau); strong where decisions rely on bureau data and centralized feeds Experian RentBureau.
• Argyle: Direct‑source payroll and employment verification used to validate income and employer data in tenant applications; reduces false income claims and plugs into downstream screening stacks Argyle.
• Resistant AI: Specialist in detecting manipulated documents and synthetic identities in rental applications; focuses on document fraud that often precedes delinquency Resistant AI.