Rendering of Starlight’s Trinity Heights scheme in Manchester
Starlight Investments has raised £680M for its second UK BTR fund, one of the largest specialist UK capital raises in the sector to date.
Starlight said the capital, when supplemented with debt, would allow it to build about 6,000 build-to-rent homes in the UK.
That will place the firm in the top four UK BTR operators, Starlight Head of UK Residential Jonnie Milich said in a statement.
The fundraising is a shot in the arm for a sector that has seen development plunge in recent years, due to a combination of rising costs and falling asset values. Annual BTR starts fell 79% to 3,455 homes in the 12 months to June 2026, data from RE:UK and Savills showed.
Among the projects on the go, a combined £500M of equity and debt from Starlight UK BTR Fund II has already been deployed on three developments: two in Manchester and one in Basildon, Essex.
The first Manchester scheme is a 60-storey, 532-unit tower under construction in the Castlefield conservation area on the bank of the River Irwell. The second is a 40-storey, 517-unit residential tower in the city’s Greengate neighbourhood.
The Basildon project is a 492-unit, three-block mid-rise property close to the main train station.
The UK Government’s National Housing Bank is a cornerstone investor in the fund, putting in £100M of equity.
Starlight is a private company based in Toronto with 30B Canadian dollars (£26B) of assets under management, comprising 70,000 residential units and 7M SF of commercial space. Its UK portfolio comprises 4,000 BTR units with an end value of £1.1B.
“The successful close of Fund II reflects the strong institutional conviction behind Starlight’s UK residential strategy and the opportunity we continue to see in the market,” Raj Mehta, Starlight’s president of global markets, said in a statement.
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