Julie Blanc is the CEO & Co-Founder of Rentana, the leading AI-powered revenue optimization platform for multifamily owners and operators. She spent the last 10+ years in venture capital, scaling enterprise software businesses and delivered over $1B of investor returns for innovative tech startups that have redefined traditional finance, education, manufacturing and sports.

She most recently led corporate development at fintech company Array, where she acquired four businesses and developed new product lines centered around customer data privacy and security. Julie is a Forbes 30 Under 30 winner, graduated Magna Cum Laude from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, speaks three languages (French, German and English), and supports local STEM programs in NYC.

What inspired you and your co-founders to launch Rentana?

My co-founding team and I all came from major technology companies, where we modernized outdated workflows – reimagining payments at Stripe, reinventing databases at Airtable, and building proptech that now powers Airbnb and AppFolio. We saw firsthand how revenue optimization transformed airlines, hotels, and e-commerce. Yet in real estate, pricing strategies were still stuck in the past, dependent on spreadsheets or outdated, black-box software.

We built Rentana to change that. Our platform delivers real-time revenue intelligence and personalized recommendations that help owners and operators optimize their portfolios instantly. As rental housing expands, Rentana enables multifamily leaders to optimize revenue, save significant time, and stay competitive in a fast-moving market.

How do you differ from your competitors?

One of our customers, Robert Waz, VP of Revenue & Strategic Initiatives at 29th Street Capital, articulated our point of differentiation best: “Other platforms feel like Windows 95. Rentana feels like 2025.”

His quote really sums up everything from our backend technology to our front-end user experience. Rentana transforms pricing and portfolio strategy with customized, real-time intelligence in record speed.

Legacy systems are clunky and slow. Rentana is powerful, intuitive, and lightning fast. Onboarding takes minutes, not weeks. Recommendations update in under a second. Customers save up to 10 hours per week per property on data analysis and pricing. And above all, our AI doesn’t recycle public data, but rather serves up tailored insights by combining each customer’s private rental information with real-time public market trends; we never share customer data.

You just announced a successful partnership with Orion – tell us about it.

Orion Real Estate Partners is a tech-forward investment firm that, like many operators, was stuck with manual, time-consuming pricing processes. Their team was spending hours digging through revenue reports while facing a season slowdown, and knew they needed to quickly drive efficiency and performance without adding headcount.

They chose Rentana, and within just five months they achieved:

• 350% ROI
  
• 6x faster pricing reviews cutting evaluation time down from an hour to 10 minutes per property per day
  
• 2% occupancy growth (even during a down-market!)

On Wednesday, October 1st at 2pm ET, Orion Principal Mark Limpert and I will host a live webinar breaking down exactly how Orion achieved these results, and the playbook multifamily owners and operators can use to do the same. Sign up now.

The Orion news comes on the heels of your recent $5M fundraising round and other big customer wins. What’s driving this momentum?

Our momentum comes from proving results quickly. Leaders don’t have months to wait; they need tech that’s easy to use and will deliver measurable impact right away. With Rentana, onboarding takes a single day, recommendations update instantly, and results drive long term impact.

Take our recent pilot with 29th Street Capital, when they compared us against an industry veteran’s new revenue management platform: Rentana drove $4.6 million in added property value in just 90 days, 3.5% higher net rental income growth, and 21× faster onboarding. We also released more than 100 platform enhancements during that same period, whereas our competitor shipped just one.

Our speed, agility, and revenue impact is why real estate leaders are choosing Rentana.

What does this success say about the changing landscape of multifamily revenue management?

It marks a pivotal shift: the real estate industry is ready to move on from outdated, black-box models. Owners and operators no longer accept one-size-fits-all pricing or slow, opaque systems. They want tools that are transparent, intuitive, and adaptive to their own data, not just generic market trends.

Rentana has set a new standard, delivering personalized insights and actionable pricing recommendations that empower leaders to make smarter decisions in real time. Modern, AI-driven platforms like Rentana are no longer a “nice-to-have”; they’re quickly becoming the new expectation for how revenue management gets done.

What are the biggest challenges in adopting new technologies in multifamily properties?

Change management. Even when the ROI is clear, shifting workflows and building trust in a new system takes time. That’s why we prioritize white-glove onboarding and transparency in our models, and provide dedicated support.

We treat our customers like members of our team. We take a hands-on, collaborative approach to ensure they not only get top value from Rentana, but also feel supported every step of the way as their business grows.

Can you share three tips for multi family leaders to consider implementing when reviewing potential revenue management tools to scale their pricing strategies?

Absolutely. As multifamily leaders look to drive both revenue and efficiency, it’s critical to invest in platforms that:

1. Deliver results, transparency, and trust. Teams adopt faster and act with more confidence when they understand the “why” behind pricing recommendations, and when those recommendations deliver measurable ROI.
   
2. Prioritize speed. The market shifts daily. Real-time insights give operators the agility to act quickly and stay ahead of competitors.
   
3. Protect your data. Data is your IP. At Rentana, we never share customer data. Your data always stays your data.

How do you envision Rentana evolving?

We’re scaling Rentana into a holistic revenue optimization platform that functions like a digital teammate. Soon, owners and operators will be able to build and refine portfolio strategy in real time, supported by predictive analytics and conversational AI.

Our vision is to create the premier AI copilot for real estate that integrates customer goals, budgets, marketing data, and ancillary revenue streams, while enabling teams to talk to their data and get instant, actionable insights.

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