Tech Nest: The Proptech Podcast

Subscribe to Tech Nest: the Proptech Newsletter for weekly updates: https://www.technest.io/tech-nest-the-proptech-newsletter

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Inc Magazine just published their annual list of the fastest growing, private companies in the US. Proptech had a great showing out on the list this year. The list below (which I discuss in this episode) isn't likely the exhaustive, entirety of all proptech companies on the list. However, this should satisfy giving you an idea of the types of companies working at the intersection of real estate and technology, that made the 2023 list of fastest growing private companies.

The Inc 5000 ranks private companies, based on the self-reported percentage of growth over the last three years. Each company in this cohort had to have generated a minimum of $100,000 in gross revenue for 2019 and a minimum of $2,000,000 for 2022.

See the full Inc 5000 list for 2023 here.

Lula #125

Rental property maintenance solutions powered by a network of vetted contractors.

• https://lula.life
• $4.2M raised according to Crunchbase
• 3,871% growth

Transactly #126

Transactly provides technology and tech-enabled services to coordinate real estate transactions across US and Canada.

• https://transactly.com
• $11.5M raised according to Crunchbase
• 3,852% growth

Chunker #319

ON-DEMAND SUPPLY CHAIN SOLUTIONS Short-term Warehouses, Pop-up 3PL Services, and Transportation

• https://chunker.com 
• $$ raised unknown
• 1,481% growth
• Chunker on Tech Nest: https://technest.io/2022/01/how-industrial-warehousing-is-innovating

LiveEasy #487

(Previously known as MoveEasy) A surprisingly simple moving and living experience.

• https://www.liveeasy.com 
• $13M raised according to Crunchbase
• 1,204% growth

BOSSCAT #497

(Previously known as PunchListUSA) Complete any home improvement effortlessly with Bosscat’s streamlined repair, renovation, and maintenance solutions.

• https://bosscathome.com
• $48.7M raised according to Crunchbase
• 1,175% growth

PadSplit #510

The nation’s largest co-living marketplace. Innovative. Affordable. ➡️ Unlock revenue. Positively impact your community.

• https://www.padsplit.com
• $35.2M raised according to Crunchbase
• 1,152% growth

Rebuilt #533

Buy. Sell. Invest. Grow your investment portfolio with off-market properties.

• https://www.rebuilt.com 
• $17.2M raised according to Tracxn
• 1,096% growth

StackSource #777

Simplifying commercial real estate financing.

• https://www.stacksource.com 
• $3.3M raised according to Crunchbase (this does not include debt facilities raised for issuing loans)
• 758% growth

Poplar Homes #865

A tech-enabled property management company providing streamlined renting process for owners and renters to live easy.

• https://www.poplarhomes.com 
• $131.9M raised according to Crunchbase
• 683% growth
• Poplar Homes on Tech Nest: https://technest.io/2022/08/venture-backed-property-management-with-chuck-hattemer-co-founder-and-cmo-of-poplar-homs

Snaplistings #902

Full-funnel real estate marketing agency utilizing data science and cutting edge strategies from impression to close.

• https://hello.snaplistings.com 
• $$ raised unknown
• 650% growth

Orchard #984

Our mission is to make home buying stress-free, fair, and simple. With Orchard, your home sale never holds you back.

• https://orchard.com
• $472M raised according to Crunchbase
• 602% growth

RentSpree #992

Our vision is to create a world where people, rentals, and homes are easily connected.

• https://www.rentspree.com 
• $27.7M raised according to Crunchbase
• 598% growth
• RentSpree on Tech Nest: https://technest.io/2022/07/modern-rental-management-tools-for-real-estate-agents-and-investors-with-michael-lucarelli-ceo-of-rentspree

Roofstock #1375

Invest where you want, no matter where you call home. 

• https://www.roofstock.com 
• $365.3M raised according to Crunchbase
• 425% growth
• Roofstock OnChain on Tech Nest: https://technest.io/2022/12/instant-real-estate-transactions-on-blockchain-with-sanjay-raghavan-and-geoff-thompson-of-roofstock-onchain

Curbio #1467

We provide real estate agents and their clients easy, hassle-free renovations that get listings sold faster—for more.

• https://curbio.com
• $126M raised according to Crunchbase
• 393% growth
• Curbio on Tech Nest: https://technest.io/2021/10/s7e75-interview-with-rikki-rogers-vp-of-marketing-at-curbio

Evernest #1646

Your full-service real estate partner.

• https://www.evernest.co 
• $$ raised unknown
• 341% growth

Valcre® #2009

More appraisals, in less time, with less work.

• https://www.valcre.com
• $12.7M raised according to Crunchbase
• 279% growth

RentDynamics #2024

(Acquired by Entrata)Multif...

Subscribe to Tech Nest: the Proptech Newsletter for weekly updates: https://www.technest.io/tech-nest-the-proptech-newsletter

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Josh Ernst, Founder and CEO of Backflip, a fintech focused on helping real estate investors through enhanced investing tools and by providing loans, brought the heat! Very few interviews with founders get into the specifics of product-led growth like we did in this one. Josh emphasizes the importance of starting with the customers' problems first, and then working backwards to find the right solutions and models. This is probably one of the most product and growth focused episodes we've published recently. This is not one to skip!

More about Josh and Backflip
Backflip is a real estate financial technology company that supports individual entrepreneurs reinvigorating the housing supply by acquiring and renovating single family homes. The company offers purpose-built technology and capital products used by its members to source, analyze and finance residential real estate investments. Backflip’s platform democratizes technology, data, and financing strategies that were previously only available to institutional investors and large corporations.

Josh founded Backflip with Jake in October 2020. Josh holds a passion for driving innovation and value creation, which has been evident throughout his diverse and accomplished career, and brings a wealth of expertise from his previous professional experiences:
Josh served as the Chief Operating Officer (COO) at DeShong Companies (dba "Trelly") and Myers the HomeBuyers, where he oversaw all internal operations and executed the company's vision, with responsibilities spanning product development, sales, marketing, operations, human resources, and finance/accounting. During his tenure, the company successfully completed over 1,500 investment and sales transactions annually, expanded the team to approximately 80 people and established offices in four locations. Additionally, Josh held a position on the company's Board of Directors.

• Connect with Josh on LinkedIn
• Check out Backflip

Government employee by day, proptech founder at night. Donato Callahan is the CEO of BrightInvestor, a tech service that enables for real estate investors to better gather data and insights on markets, using visualizations. Donato isn't just a hopeful tech founder looking to capitalize on an opening in the market. He's an active real estate investor, building the tools to accelerate much of the manual work he used to do in order to make sound investments. 

More about Donato and BightInvestor
By day, Donato is a geospatial analyst for the Department of Defense. By night, he is a commercial multifamily syndicator with $15M in assets and another $15M under contract & is the CEO of BrightInvestor!

He met his co-founder, Drew McCluskey, two years ago and have worked together to bring this amazing resource to new real estate investors everywhere.

BrightInvestor helps real estate investors get the answers they need by turning hours of market research into minutes. Crime stats, appreciation rates, population & job growth...even development activity tracking so you're always one step ahead of the competition. No more wasted hours bouncing from site to site. No more throwing money away on a dozen different subscriptions. You get everything you need in one place with BrightInvestor. BrightInvestor—market research made simple.

• Connect with Donato
• Check out BrightInvestor

In this episode, we're joined by the CEO of Azibo, Vikas Gupta. Azibo is an all-one-solution for mom-pop landlords—specifically for those with 50 units or less. In the last few years, there's been significant changes to the rental landscape including how owners collect rent, reporting on-time rent payments to credit bureaus, and how many are becoming investors (think: accidental landlords) due to the interest rates environment we're in. One of the most important topics we discuss goes beyond proptech. Vikas shares about the importance of delivering delight when building tech products. Jump in to hear what Azibo has to say.

More about Vikas and Azibo
Azibo is a unified financial and property management platform for independent real estate investors.

Vikas Gupta is the CEO of Azibo, a unified financial and property management platform for independent real investors. Prior to Azibo, he's held a variety of roles at different pre-seed to Series B startups, including as a founder, as a product leader, and a marketing leader. Over his 15+ years in technology, Vikas has helped companies grow from pre–revenue to 8+ figures in revenue. Today, Azibo helps property owners manage tens of thousands of rental units across the U.S. which includes hundreds of millions of rent payments, annually. 

• Follow Vikas on Twitter
• Connect with Vikas on LinkedIn
• Follow Azibo on Twitter
• Check out Azibo

More about Skylight
Skylight connects multifamily units to your city's top leasing talents. 

Our technology platform allows for your internal leasing team to be more competitive and efficient while providing you unlimited access to additional leasing talent in the area. 

Lease faster. Achieve higher rents with fewer concessions. Less headaches around finding and retaining leasing talent.  

• Follow Skylight on Twitter
• Follow Jason on Twitter
• Follow Max on Twitter
• Connect with Jason on LinkedIn
• Connect with Max on LinkedIn
• Checkout Skylight

Welcome to another episode of Tech Nest. In today's episode, we have a special guest joining us, Bill Martiner, the CTO and Co-founder of Avenue One, a Proptech company that has quietly risen to unicorn status in about three years time. Avenue One recently made headlines by successfully raising an impressive $100 million round of funding. While they may be a quiet company, their impact in the residential real estate space cannot be ignored.

Avenue One's mission is to revolutionize the industry by creating a comprehensive service platform and marketplace catering to institutional owners, buyers, and sellers. During our conversation, we'll delve into the fascinating journey of Avenue One. 

Press play to learn about this emerging proptech company.

More about Bill and Avenue One
William Martiner is Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Avenue One. As a Senior Technology Executive with over 20 years’ experience in driving growth and innovation for the Financial Service Industry, William has focused on applying technology to empower and transform business processes.

Avenue One is a property technology service platform and marketplace for institutional owners, buyers and sellers of residential homes. 

Avenue One makes investing in the residential rental market more transparent and efficient for institutions, while also supporting local businesses. The company does this through a service platform that combines proprietary data and a network of local partners to identify, acquire, renovate, lease and manage residential investment properties. This ecosystem of independent businesses - including brokers, contractors, title professionals, and property managers - provide local expertise to create and maintain portfolios of quality rental properties across the country. 

Avenue One’s technology is hyper-scalable and nimble, enabling its rapid growth. Avenue One also offers a marketplace of services to buyers, owners, and sellers of residential real estate.  By offering a robust marketplace and not buying for its own balance sheet, Avenue One has been able to quickly attract a wide variety of market participants.

• Connect with Bill on LinkedIn
• Follow Avenue One on LinkedIn
• Check out Avenue One

Join us on this episode as we delve into the world of rental with the founder of Rentbase, a new solution for agents and brokers in the real estate industry. Noam Blum, the founder, shares his personal experiences as an agent and the challenges he faced. With Rentbase, he aimed to automate leasing workflows and uncover sales opportunities. Rentbase is working to simplify the leasing process, from pre-qualifying leads to nurturing them into sales. Learn how Noam's unique approach and collaboration with a seasoned CTO aimed at revolutionizing the rental market, and empowering agents to maximize their commissions.

More about Noaam and RentBase
RentBase is an innovative proptech company that helps agents and brokers automate their leasing workflow and discover sales opportunities within their rentals.

With their unique ability to create a sales lead funnel from an agents rental data, RentBase has now begun partnerships with major MLSs and are in the process of closing company-wide deals with some of the largest brokerages in the country.

• Connect with Noaam on LinkedIn
• Check out RentBase

"More than a marketplace" is how ReWyre desrcibes their procurement platform for proptech solutions. Rasheq Zarif is the Co-founder and COO of ReWyre, and he wants to help property professionals find the right proptech solutions that meet their business needs in a more efficient and seamless way. Rasheq is leveraging his experience as an accomplished consultant, CEO, and tech advisor to guide real estate companies in identifying and adopting the right proptech solutions.

More about Rasheq and ReWyre
Covering the entire proptech ecosystem, ReWyre is an online platform that makes it easy for property professionals and companies to discover, procure and optimize the right technology for every project and requirement. By providing tailored, best-fit, recommendations, ReWyre saves property players time, confusion and stress when it comes to choosing and deploying new technologies across their real estate portfolio.

Rasheq Zarif is Co-Founder and COO of ReWyre. Prior to his current role, Rasheq was MD of Deloitte's Future of Mobility & Smart Logistics function. He is a Member of the Advisory Board for Parkmyfleet.com, as well as Lead Strategic Advisor to Crown PropTech Acquisitions.

• Connect with Rasheq on LinkedIn
• Check out Rewyre

If you've been following Mike Wolber, then you know he's a rare one in our industry. Mike is a fellow podcast host of Modern Multifamily, but also the Chief Revenue Officer at Rent Dynamics—a proptech company focused on improving the overall lifecycle of residents through better technology tools for owners and managers. Mike is frequently bringing a ton of value to the industry sharing his insights, creating industry reports, and of course, contributing through his podcast. You can get most of his musings on LinkedIn (link below to follow him),

Few putting in as much into the proptech and multifamily industry as Mike is. That's why I'm so stoked to have him on Tech Nest. I'll keep the description short so you'll have to hit play and hear what he's building.

More about Mike and Rent Dynamics
Rent Dynamics is a proptech company exclusively focused on Multifamily. We turned 10 in 2022 and deliver 3 core products to the industry: a CRM, Contact Center, and a financial amenity for residents where we repot on-time rent payments to the credit bureaus. We call that RentPlus.

Mike is the podcast host of Modern Multifamily and is deeply passionate about go-to-market and all things technology.

• Follow Mike on Twitter
• Connect with Mike on LinkedIn
• Check out Rent Dynamics

It's an exciting day when we get to have a returning guest on Tech Nest. Drew Fabrikant, CEO of Scout will be sharing today about AI, its uses in real estate, and what you might need to know to leverage this tech in your business—whether you're running a proptech or traditional real estate business.

More about Drew and Scout
Scout helps you build stronger connections with your ideal customer.

Drew Fabrikant is the founder and CEO of Scout. Prior to that, Drew built a  marketplace where homeowners could connect with home service professionals and also practiced as an attorney at Skadden Arps (advising on over $30B in transaction volume). In addition to his role at Scout, Drew invests in real estate and venture capital, advises early-stage tech companies, and is an attorney and licensed real estate broker. Drew earned his J.D. from Georgetown University and his B.A. from the University of Maryland.

• Follow Scout on Twitter
• Connect with Drew on LinkedIn
• Check out Scout