The Mexican proptech Casai has acquired Loopkey in its third deal in Brazil. Loopkey is an access control company that provides an entry management system with electronic locks.
Casai is a short-term rental startup, and it had been using LoopKey’s solution before they decided to integrate with them. LoopKey will remain a separate entity from Casai, which stated it is planning to invest $2 million in Loopkey’s research and development.
Nico Barawid, Casai’s CEO and co-founder, explained the following:
“After looking at the market we realized that LoopKey was the best technology for access control for smart locks and Pedro [Pedro Salum, LoopKey’s co-founder] and I started talking about a partnership, as Casai was a very big buyer of their locks in Brazil.”
Based in Mexico, Casai aims to be a high-end Airbnb for high-end business travelers, nomads, and families. The apartments in Casai are located in neighborhoods with their cities’ best culture and food.
The company had already invested in Brazilian companies before: the property management firm Roomin, the real estate company Q Apartments, and partnered with Six Stays, a São Paulo specialist in corporate housing. Today, Casai is present in six cities in Brazil and Mexico with more than 1,400 units in its portfolio.
With this acquisition, Casai plans to extend LoopKey’s technology through the region and to offer more solutions similar to it. The goal is to offer this type of solutions to real estate partners as well as guests. Barawid added:
“We want to be the first hospitality operating system for real estate partners in Latin America”.