Proptech Bilt hires D.C.-based “industry legend” to increase its reach

Ankur Jain, the founder and CEO of Bilt Rewards, likes to keep his company lean when it comes to its head count.

Indeed, the rental rewards company that became a proptech unicorn last fall has just 100 workers despite its success.

“With startups, how many employees you have is like a badge [of honor], but for me it seems like you are just burning a lot of money,” Jain said in a telephone interview.

So it’s particularly meaningful that New York-based Bilt announced last week that it had hired multifamily housing sector leader Doug Bibby as its chairman of the Bilt Rewards Alliance, a role in which he will work with Bilt’s network of owners and operators representing more than 3 million units, including Greystar, AvalonBay, Related Companies, Trammell Crow and Starwood.

Bibby worked for 15 years at Fannie Mae before moving on to the National Multifamily Housing Council trade group, where he served as president for over 21 years.

“Doug [led] the industry in tons of major initiatives and brought together all the leaders of all the other multifamily groups,” Jain said. “He is a legend in the industry. The idea of Doug now coming in to lead the alliance of owners and operators is a really exciting signal to the market.”

Bibby, who is based in Washington, D.C., said he was drawn to Bilt’s business model, which is a credit card offering and a loyalty program launched in June 2021 by Jain’s venture fund, Kairos. In paying their rent, tenants collect points, which they can use toward a downpayment or redeem for travel, fitness or shopping.

“They created a company that’s taken the dreaded day for renters — Rent Day — when you’ve got to make the dreaded payment to the landlord, and you’ve got this exciting new opportunity to earn points each month,” Bibby, who will not be working in a government relations or fiduciary role, said. “Bilt allows people that if they’re strapped for a month or two, they can use the points to defray costs of rent.

“The other critical thing they did is, one, work with credit help renters to build their credit histories. If you have a home mortgage, you’re building a credit history. [With Bilt], if you pay rent in a timely fashion and full price every month, you can build a credit history. What the Bilt team has done is do that at no cost to the resident. It’s a spectacular achievement.

“Final thing is they’re working with credit card companies — I tried for years to get them to drop their fees, so these guys powered through to make all things happen and it’s really exciting.”

Still, it’s been noted that by allowing rent payments via credit card, it can introduce a fresh source of debt to a demographic often buried by student loans. It does have a feature, called BiltProtect, that acts as a bumper for less-qualified borrowers by pulling funds directly from their bank account to curtail overborrowing.