Ninefold Boosts First Blue Chilli Start-Up

Blue Chill, the venture technology agency, has joined the Ninefold Cloud Booster Program and chosen Ninefold Pty Limited to host its online start-up, Housl, launching on May 1, 2012 to shake up the rental property management market across Australia.

Blue Chilli chose Housl to be its first incubated start-up hosted on Ninefold, the Australian public cloud compute and cloud storage company, and take advantage of fast, low latency for its volume-based transactional computing requirements.

Housl removes all paperwork to automate the rental housing process for tenants and real estate agents online. It allows prospective tenants to apply for properties via a smartphone/mobile device, gathers references and financial information and automates the approval process for property managers, all via a ranking system.

Blue Chilli has recently established a new collaborative co-working space to house entrepreneurs and developers, and incubates 12 handpicked start-ups in Sydney, at Level 2, 50 York Street. This joins the Blue Chill start-up space in Melbourne.

The Ninefold Cloud Booster Program will be extended to all start-ups and residents within the Blue Chilli network which gain free Ninefold cloud computing and storage credit worth up to $2,000 per month for up to a year. They also get a technical sales consultation for setup, together with opportunities to reach the Ninefold community through guest blog posts and involvement in marketing campaigns.

"Every little helps when you’re bootstrapping," said Roland Flanagan, CEO of Housl. "Housing is, as we all know, a very emotive business – so when your new online business is in this space and you’re reliant on technology that needs to process a vast amount of information quickly, to help people find homes, it’s great peace of mind to know you’ve got a fast, scalable and locally hosted platform in Ninefold."

"We’d heard that Ninefold scored well on speed, and given performance is central to our strategy in picking the best go-to-market ideas, we jumped at the opportunity to become a Ninefold Cloud Booster Partner," said Sebastien Eckersley-Maslin, Blue Chilli founder. "We’re aiming to launch one new online business per month in 2012, so are grateful for the foundation support Ninefold provides our community."

"As always, we’re proud to support Aussie start-ups with whatever support they need – meeting space, mentoring and cloud computing. We’re pleased to welcome Housl, Blue Chilli and their community to the fold," said Peter James, chairman and co-founder at Ninefold.

Customers benefit from provisioning, self-service, no maintenance fees and no lock-in plans. They also gain access to free, local multi-channel support via email, live chat, Twitter and phone.

About Housl
It is an online and mobile app for tenants to apply for rental properties without needing to fill out tenancy application forms and is a management solution for property managers to speed up the application process.

About Blue Chilli
It is a venture technology agency, a company that combines software development, marketing, branding and business development skills with investments in online start-ups – a strategy called venture technology.