This multiple award-winner is building a proptech for the student community

Every year, about 600,000 students gain admission into tertiary institutions without prior accommodation. The first instinct of these freshers is to find a place to live, and most end up going door to door until they land in the hands of professional house agents notorious for taking advantage of vulnerable new students.

This was Stephen Adeyemo’s reality when he arrived at Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) as a 100-level student in 2018, only to be scammed by the house agent.

That experience became the seed of Resavation. In 2021, in his final year at OAU, Adeyemo began building a solution to the student housing problem that had cost him. “I like to build things. I don’t feel comfortable when I see a problem — I would love to solve it,” he told Condia. This drive, as a student, came at a cost. “That’s what being an entrepreneur entails. it takes sacrifice, and it takes grit,” he said. 

The venture has raised over ₦30 million across approximately six grants, the latest being a ₦5 million grant from IHS Towers. Adeyemo believes the timing is right. “Students are tired of traditional house agents and are now aware that they could have better accommodation and prices,” he claimed.

How Resavation works

Resavation is an AI-powered platform where verified landlords list their housing units and students or working individuals browse and secure accommodation. The goal is to cut out the traditional middleman and make the renting process easier and safer.

The platform includes features such as an AI chatbot, live property surveys, and an AI roommate-matching feature that pairs potential tenants based on compatible qualities and preferences. It also has a built-in wallet for rent payments, with more features still in the pipeline.

Resavation generates revenue primarily through property management services for landlords, charging 5% of tenants’ rent to cover cleaning, maintenance, and general apartment management. It also charges tenants a one-time fee of 5% of their rent.

The platform is currently available in Ile-Ife and Ibadan.

Building trust in the market

Adeyemo acknowledges that the hardest part of building Resavation has been getting landlords to adopt the platform. The proptech market is fragmented, and many landlords remain resistant, preferring the familiarity of informal arrangements with traditional house agents. He also faced resistance from these agents, who would tell him directly that it would never work. “They kept saying this to discourage us,” he said. On weekends, when coursework was lighter, he would go out himself on Saturdays to meet landlords in person. 

To break through this, Resavation built its own network of community ambassadors who went door to door with a simple pitch. “Hi, my name is Stephen. I’m from Resavation. We are currently helping students find safe, affordable off-campus apartments. Your property is only visible to people who pass in front of it — why not give it visibility at no cost?” This on-the-ground approach proved far more effective than social media advertising, which the team tried and abandoned. “It helped us build trust with landlords,” Adeyemo said. “We were able to sign up 100 landlords on our platform, with some having up to three houses in different locations.”

Much of this was made possible by Resavation’s robust student network. “Almost all my employees are from OAU,” Adeyemo noted. As a student founder, he found that proximity to peers willing to contribute often for the experience alone was a significant advantage. His current chief technical officer (CTO), a 400-level OAU student who joined as an intern, brought professional-level skills that exceeded expectations.

His advice to student founders is to build now. “There is funding available to students that is not available to non-students. If you wait, someone else might build it, and you will come to the market late.” He also points to the built-in advantage of being your own target market. “As a student, you have a ready market. Build a minimum viable product (MVP) and test it. Fail, learn, and research.”

What’s next

Nigeria’s housing deficit stands at 14.9 million as of January 2026. “The biggest problem is supply,” Adeyemo said. As Resavation looks to expand, it plans to move into the supply side of the market by building housing units, which it believes will give the company greater control and deepen landlord trust.

The company is also planning to raise equity funding to scale its market presence across the entire southwestern region of Nigeria and grow supply.

In the longer term, Resavation has ambitions beyond student housing, with plans to expand into real estate and lending. “I intend to partner with financial institutions to provide loans using credit scores,” Adeyemo said. His second venture, ExportPlug, an e-commerce platform for international logistics, has also gained recognition and was selected for the Tony Elumelu Foundation programme.

Last updated: May 15, 2026