The idea of becoming a real estate investor for just $5 might seem too good.
And for many Landa users, it is a Proptech company that has promised that.
Randa emerged from stealth in August 2022, and announced its pledge to help everyday Americans access residential real estate investments through fractional shares, totaling $33 million.
CEO Yishai Cohen and former CTO Amit Assaraf founded Landa in 2019 to make real estate investments more comprehensive. The only requirement for the app was that the user was over the age of 18 and was a US resident. They start investing for just $5 and buy and sell shares as well as see real-time updates about the properties from the Landa app. (Assaraf left the company in December 2023, according to his LinkedIn profile. He has not responded to requests for comment.)
Today, Landa’s investment portal site is down and the app cannot work. Users claim that they have no access to funds and have not received dividends in months. The startup has been caught up in lawsuits, including those from early venture investor Viola.
One early user told TechCrunch that Landa stopped paying dividends to him in January with his shares. When he asked Randa about it, they “punted the question,” he said.
“I emailed them over and over about it, just distracting the answer, and nothing really happened,” the user said. “Then, a few months later, the app is no longer available. It won’t open.”
Users then asked if they could delete their accounts they opened in 2021 and sold the stock. However, he discovers that Randa has invalidated his ability to sell stocks.
“They essentially frozen me out of my funds and closed the app,” the user said. “Where is the money? Why don’t they return it to me?”
Over 130 complaints have been filed against Landa with the Better Business Bureau, with dozens of people reflecting similar complaints. For example, on May 1, one user who filed such a complaint stopped investing more than $8,000 through Landa and receiving dividends last fall. Users said Landa’s customer service responded to the email saying the company was “working on that.”
When TechCrunch asked Landa about the issue in mid-April, CEO Cohen said, including the status of the collapsed site and whether the company itself was closed.
When asked why the app wasn’t working, why users weren’t receiving dividends in a few months, Cohen’s brief reply still appears to refer to the website, saying, “It’s irrelevant to dividends. It’s from our server. We’re on it.”
On further thrusts, Cohen shared the following statement on April 18th: “We are aware of the issues currently affecting our platform and our products and want to assure all investors that we are actively working to restore full functionality as quickly as possible.
Cohen did not respond to a request for a status update on May 20th. Investors NFX and 83NORTH did not respond to multiple requests for comments.
got caught up in a lawsuit
Users aren’t the only ones who are angry at Randa. The company’s major lenders are suing.
Viola Credit and L Finance filed a lawsuit against Landa in the New York Supreme Court in November 2024, denounced “many defaults” on the $35 million loans that had expanded to the company. (Viola is also an investor in Landa through its venture division.)
Lenders also accused them of missing property tax payments, which led to forced sales of those properties, neglecting the property, and even collecting rents.
The lawsuit — first reported by the real estate industry publication Bisnow — says after more than a year attempting to respect its commitment to Randa, the lender has removed Randa as the home manager and appointed an independent real estate manager and chief restructuring manager.
After further negotiations failed, the creditors were later granted, asking the court for an injunction blocking access to bank accounts, obstructing attempts to restructure the business, and preventing regeneration of money that they say includes revenue from asset sales.
Despite the injunction, the lender returned to court in January 2025, claiming that Randa ordered the tenant to send rent payments to another bank account that was not subject to the sentence. They discovered this while repairing one real estate system. They also accused Landa CEO of trying to sell or refinance several properties.
The court ordered Randa to explain himself. Instead, in early March, Randa asked the court to restriction orders against Viola Credit and L-Finance, claiming that an independent manager was “illegally set up.”
Judge Jennifer G. Schector was not pleased. In March, she ordered both parties to find a solution that says, “It’s good for all your clients.” She denied Landa’s request for an injunction and ordered the company to pay nearly $100,000. A few weeks later, Randa submitted an official countersuit. The case is still pending.
A challenging model
Landa is just one of several startups that have emerged in recent years, offering fractional real estate investments. And it’s clearly not the only one that struggled, especially after mortgage rates began to surge in 2022.
Fintor raised millions of dollars before making a seemingly pivot to provide “AI agents to automate finance and real estate operations with human-level performance.” Dallas-based NADA offers real estate investment products like an index called “CityFunds,” allowing non-certified investors to purchase into the city’s home equity market, which costs just $250. The website is currently promoting new catchphrases. “Access to home equity and raise all your funds.”
Arrived is probably the highest profile in the bundle, the only one that appears to be actively operating under the same model. In May 2022, TechCrunch reported that it raised $25 million in a Series A funding round, including Bezos Expeditions, and $25 million to allow the company to buy shares on a single family rental for “just $100.” The startup has so far paid more than $13 million in dividends and interest, with 766,000 registered investors.
As for those who invested in Randa, the future of their money looks uncertain. As of May 23rd, Landa’s Investor Portal website continues to be redirected to the “Comeback Thorn” maintenance message.