For years, multifamily property managers have juggled the complicated task of utility billing: ensuring accurate rates, paying utility providers, and fairly allocating costs among tenants. That process, often defined by manual input and time-consuming oversight, is on the cusp of transformation, says John Hinckley, co-founder of Billee Technologies, a startup aiming to modernize the sector.
“Today, you ingest the bills from the utility provider, which historically has been manual, people pulling the bills down, incorporating that data into the platform,” Hinckley tells GlobeSt.com. “We're looking to use AI to automate a lot of the more challenging parts that require historically human interaction.”
Billee Technologies, now just over a year old, recently closed a $9.15 million seed round led by RET Ventures to accelerate its vision. The company’s growth has included strategic acquisitions in Texas: it purchased both a billing platform with nearly a decade of experience and a complementary billing service arm. “We basically smashed those two together,” Hinckley says, noting that Billee’s team is now beta testing new automation features that pull the pieces into a cohesive, modern platform.
“Along with those acquisitions, we acquired quite a bit of billing knowledge and expertise with those founders and owners and staff that we brought in,” says Hinckley, a serial entrepreneur in the proptech space. “The billing configurations are quite complex. They incorporate different methodologies, different rules, and regulations. Acquiring an existing company that already had those configurations in place gave us a jump start into this space.”
With this foundation, Billee sees an opportunity to fundamentally remake how utility billing works. “We bought these existing companies so that we could have the infrastructure and processes in place to start to disrupt and build more automation, deeper integrations, and incorporate AI into the billing experience,” Hinckley tells GlobeSt.com. He adds that their new software features will roll out in the coming quarters.
For property managers, the promise is straightforward: automation that starts with monthly ingestion of billing data from the utility provider—breaking down the bills and seamlessly integrating the information into the system.
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