Co-founders Taylor Peake and Emily Hart created the Occupi mobile app to make rental payments easier for tenants and landlords. Occupi aggregates popular payment options, such as Cash App, Chime, Venmo and more, in one place for tenants to easily submit their rent payments.

Using Occupi, tenants can pay with the financial service they prefer, and rental payments post directly to their landlord’s or property manager’s general ledger. For prospective tenants searching for a new home, Occupi provides a quick, mobile application process that also supports residents on visas with ITINs (Individual Taxpayer Identification Number). Occupi is working with landlords and property managers to tackle some of the biggest challenges facing tenants and landlords – sending and receiving rent payments, and quickly and efficiently processing screening applications.

“Occupi’s platform screens prospective tenants for rental housing and facilitates financial optionality for tenants to pay their monthly rent,” Hart said. “Occupi tracks and records tenant payments directly to the landlord’s general ledger inside their property management software. Occupi’s screening solution also supports international residents here on visas without Social Security numbers, which can be a barrier for international renters seeking rental housing. Occupi is making screening and rental payments easier and faster for tenants and landlords.”

The FDIC’s latest research found that 60.8% of unbanked households using Cash App or Venmo rely on these services for essential bill pay and 24.5% of banked households are using Cash App and Venmo to pay bills. Major property management software services don’t directly accept digital payments from alternative providers, and tenants need options and flexibility to pay their rent any time using the financial service they prefer. The digital solutions that do exist are bad for tenants, require landlords to jump through hoops to reconcile rent payments, or both.

Hart, co-founder and COO of Occupi, is a 2009 graduate of Samford University with a degree in journalism and mass communication. Peake, co-founder and CEO, is a 2011 UAB graduate with a degree in business information systems.

Emily Hart, co-founder and COO of Occupi. (Liesa Cole)

Taylor Peake, co-founder and CEO of Occupi. (Liesa Cole)

“Like many businesses, the pandemic brought a unique set of challenges for our rental properties. Challenges with the postal service meant any physical mail, including money orders, were delayed in some cases for months,” Peake said. “I reached out to some friends with residential real estate portfolios to ask how they handled payments. I heard feedback from property managers and landlords who accepted large volumes of physical mail or who were sending tenants to create financial credit-based accounts just to send their rent each month. Some property management software solutions offer options for accepting ACH payments, but underbanked tenants or tenants looking for optionality in payments are left without a simple solution.”

Peake and Hart established the Occupi idea in 2022 and spent 2023 building the platform. This year was the company’s first operating year, and Occupi onboarded Peake’s rental properties in rural Alabama onto Occupi. After working with tenants in her rental communities, Occupi gained feedback to help grow the platform by making it easier for everyone. Since then, Occupi has begun work with rental communities throughout the state.

“Occupi is personal for me, from the community I grew up in to the properties I own now,” Peake said. Very few companies are innovating for the common household, who are looking for optionality in how they pay their rent and speed in how they apply to rent homes in this high-demand market.”

Occupi is currently wrapping up its seed funding round to onboard tech, regulatory and financial talent to support the company’s growth in 2025. Innovate Alabama has already invested in the round via InvestAL, alongside other investors in real estate and tech.

For more information, contact Hart at emily@occupi.app or visit the Occupi website.