Munich Startup: What problem are you solving?
André Teich, Founder & CTO: Rental income is sold as passive income. In reality, you bring a second job into your home: accounting, operating cost settlements, tenant communication, coordinating service providers, move-ins and move-outs. Up to five, maybe ten units, you can handle that alone. Beyond that, it becomes a massive undertaking and your portfolio no longer scales. Property managers face the same pattern: one employee today manages up to 300 apartments and is constantly overloaded. Tenants and landlords are dissatisfied with the service. Many still stick with Excel or their old solution because switching to something new seems too big a leap. Through targeted automation and assistance, Ciro gives back security, transparency, and time. Landlords and property managers can focus on what matters again, instead of getting lost in paper, Excel, and communication chaos.
Ciro’s Secret: Team, Leadership, and AI
Munich Startup: What can only you do today?
André Teich: Our competitive advantage lies in the combination of team, leadership, and AI. The three things that overwhelm a landlord – law, taxes, and administration – are each headed by a practicing expert: Denise in rental law, Pascal in taxes, Markus in process and structure. I build the platform myself. This combination can’t be quickly replicated, and it flows into every module.
The second difference is how Ciro guides the user through tasks. Conventional property management software is basically a digitized form. It replicates paper on the screen and leaves the rest to the landlord. For us, user guidance is central. Ciro takes the user step by step by the hand, reduces every process to the essentials, and tells them at every moment what to do next. That’s precisely why the platform works for beginners with their first apartment as well as for professionals with large portfolios.
The third difference is the AI-first approach. For us, AI isn’t tacked on to features as an afterthought to earn a label – it’s an integral part of every module. Landlords and tenants communicate directly in over 40 languages via live translation. Instead of reading every inquiry themselves and putting it off until tomorrow, landlords and property managers have their daily tasks prioritized for them by Ciro. Our AI agent Hausmaister answers questions about rental management, helps classify property issues, and guides users when they get stuck. In dialogue, it even creates content directly for the user instead of leaving them alone with a task.
Getting Started Takes Less Than 10 Minutes
To make this competitive advantage felt from the start, the switch is intentionally low-barrier. Many stick with their old solution because the jump seems too big. Ciro reads practically every Excel spreadsheet and document and automatically takes over the data. That’s why onboarding takes less than ten minutes, without tedious manual entry.
Ciro covers full property management: accounting, operating cost settlements, tenant communication, and more. Because legal and tax knowledge comes from the team itself and is translated into clear user guidance, Ciro achieves a level that pure software cannot deliver.
Ciro was founded in 2026 by André Teich and Markus Froese in Munich. The proptech develops an AI-powered platform that automates the management of rental properties – from accounting to operating cost settlements to tenant communication. The underlying AI is fully operated within the EU.
Founder and CTO André Teich is a trained software developer with years of experience developing complex software solutions, including for BMW, Allianz, and KfW. Together with co-founder Markus Froese and experts in rental law and tax consulting, he continues to develop Ciro.
Munich Startup: What triggered the founding?
André Teich: The trigger was a conversation among friends, not a pitch round. I wanted to get into rental property myself. Pascal and Markus, both experienced landlords, openly told me about the complexity and error-proneness. In the end, I abandoned the idea and went back to ETFs.
That’s when it became clear to us: if three capable people with genuine interest in real estate reach the conclusion that getting started is too complicated and too error-prone, then it’s not a personal problem, it’s a structural one. In Germany, thousands of apartments remain unused or unbuilt because people fail at exactly this administrative complexity. Added to that was the visible overload in property management from my own rental situation in Munich, where a water damage sometimes took four weeks to respond to. From both of these, the decision emerged to solve this problem for private and professional landlords and property managers alike.
“Depth is Part of Our Competitive Advantage”
Munich Startup: Was there a moment when you thought about giving up?
André Teich: Not giving up. But there were moments that really challenged us. The biggest one: accurately mapping legally compliant operating cost statements and AI-supported audits turned out to be far more complex than it appears from the outside. Instead of doubting ourselves, we made that our standard. This depth is exactly what gives us our competitive advantage today.
Munich Startup: How would you know in a year that you’re on the right track?
André Teich: We want to turn Ciro into a platform where tenants, landlords, property managers, brokers, and other industry players come together. We won’t settle for a niche tool. Our ambition is to set the standard for how property management works in Germany. In one year, we want to have 100 management partners on the platform and clearly see that these diverse expertise areas recognize Ciro as genuine added value for their work. For us, this isn’t a goal we just wait for—it’s something we work toward consistently every single day.
Reality over theory
Munich Startup: Would you found again in Munich and why?
André Teich: Yes. Munich combines one of Germany’s most demanding real estate markets with a strong tech and startup scene. The idea for Ciro came from here, from our own rental situation. Being close to landlords, property managers, and talent helps us build the product based on reality rather than theory.
Munich Startup: Bootstrapping or venture capital?
André Teich: Completely bootstrapped so far, and that’s the plan for the foreseeable future as well.
