Why we invested…
April, 2025 - The Conduit EIS Impact Fund invests in Hybr, an aggregated platform for first-time renters, including students and young graduates
By Gabrielle Morgan, Senior Investment Manager & Natalie Otwoma, Associate
Hannah Chappatte, CEO and Founder of Hybr
Introducing Hybr
In recent years, the student population has grown by 400k since 2019 and is forecast to continue rising – in the same period the number of student beds has fallen 95k which highlights the worsening supply chain constraints in the UK market. The rising cost of debt and recent changes in tax and increased renter protections included in the ’renters reform bill’ have significantly negatively impacted the economics for private landlords. Landlords and agents already struggle with the high cost of marketing channels, juggling the management the 40+ enquiries they get per listing and scheduling viewings, as well as finding the best qualified applicants for their portfolio in a short period of time. Meanwhile, students and first-time renters struggle to find housing and gain access to the support they need. This is why founder, Hannah Chappatte, launched Hybr straight out of university.
The Hybr platform aggregates student and graduate housing and matches tenants to the best properties for their requirements. For landlords and agents, it has built a lettings management tool that gives them access to 1m+ renters, automatically vets tenants, schedules viewings, and automates offer management.
Our Take
40% of students have considered dropping out of university due to the cost of rent and 7% have experienced homelessness – a staggering 51% of students worry about a housing shortage. Hybr are on a mission to own the young renter experience by making renting easier, fairer, and more transparent for students and young people while driving meaningful change in the housing sector. Their vision is to create a world where every student can attend university without being held back by housing challenges. This is a highly data driven business and the founder is deeply focused on tracking matchmaking success as well as tracking their success with underserved beneficiaries with special accessibility requirements or from lower economic backgrounds. This is why Hybr thinks about their impact through four key pillars:
Accessibility – Hybr measures matchmaking success, tracks the background of the renters they help, and track what % of students drop our with Hybr vs. the national and local average in that city.
Inclusion – They monitor the impact of their Hybr Passport, allowing those who typically would not be able to rent, to rent via Hybr.
Wellbeing – They collect survey data from students and landlords to assess stress levels, experience and satisfaction.
Affordability – Hybr measures the amounts of affordable houses that are bult using Hybr’s data. They measure rent assumptions developers/investors making when they are scoping a new development, and then once they use their data, how much they reduce their rents by.
Sustainability – They track the uptake of sustainable properties and provide tools for students to measure their carbon footprint.
Hannah Chappatte, CEO and Founder at Hybr, said, "We are super excited to be a part of the Conduit Connect portfolio. Impact is at the core of what we do, and it's important to us to have an impact fund onboard to help us better measure and keep accountable to our impact goals as we scale. Our vision is a world where everyone can rent a home painlessly so they can focus on what matters. Our mission is to empower every agent and landlord to deliver a painless renter experience, starting with students."
Find out more about Hybr here