Erifili Morfidis and Charlotte Gummesson are the co-founders of iRestify. (Courtesy iRestify)

Toronto-based technology-driven building maintenance firm iRestify will further expand into the United States after raising $6 million in its latest funding round.

The company was co-founded four years ago by Charlotte Gummesson and Erifili Morfidis. The partners had previously co-founded Teleperformance, a call-centre firm which had more than 4,000 employees on three continents, before they exited that business.

“It was an antiquated industry, just like the cleaning and maintenance industry is quite antiquated,” Gummesson told RENX. “At that time there was not much technology, so we married the service with the technology to increase efficiencies.

“It’s very similar in that way to what we’re doing now.”

iRestify’s building maintenance platform

iRestify started in the residential real estate space before quickly pivoting to focus on servicing multiresidential and commercial buildings.

“What we’re able to offer property management companies and property managers is an all-in-one solution,” said Gummesson. “We provide the actual maintenance and cleaning service along with the technology.”

iRestify enables property managers to remotely oversee cleaning and maintenance operations. The technology allows them to see when cleaning services started and ended, what tasks were completed, as well as learn of any issues or complications, and view images.

The information can be used in real time and remains in the client portal so customers can save and review historical data, including what work was completed, how many hours it took and how much money was spent per building.

The cleaning and maintenance services cover all common areas of buildings and can also handle offices within commercial buildings.

Customers are charged on a monthly basis based on the size of a building, the complexity of the work and the types and frequency of services carried out.

Financing and growth

iRestify has experienced increasing demand through the pandemic and now services approximately 40 million square feet of space in 230 buildings, primarily in 22 cities across Canada.

Its biggest clients include Minto, Canadian Urban Limited, Greenrock Property Management and Greenwin.

iRestify has approximately 40 employees in its head office as well as more than 250 cleaning and maintenance teams of three to 10 people each.

“Initially we bootstrapped the company and then we did our first (equity) raise a few years ago,” said Gummesson.

iRestify raised $2.4 million in seed funding in August 2020 from Converge, with participation by Birchmere Ventures and Export Development Canada (EDC).

This latest round of funding secured financing from co-investors Gutbrain Ventures and PBJ Capital, with participation from EDC, Joint Effects, Birchmere and Converge.

iRestify had a soft launch of its service in New York and this new money will be used to expand further in the U.S.

The company’s growth strategy involves increasing penetration with existing clients while adding new ones.

Gummesson said there’s significant interest from both commercial and multiresidential property management firms.