Crowdfunder Realty Mogul raises $35M in Series B

Startup to open NYC office this year

Realty Mogul CEO Jilliene Helman
Realty Mogul CEO Jilliene Helman

Real estate crowdfunder Realty Mogul raised $35 million this week in a Series B funding round. Salt Lake City-based Sorensen Capital led the round, with additional funding provided by Canaan Partners, who led Realty Mogul’s Series A round last year. The round brings the crowdfunder’s total capital raised to $45.1 million to date, and again highlights intense investor interest in bringing technology to real estate funding.

The majority of cash will go towards hiring and strengthening the company’s technological base, Luke Grant, Realty Mogul’s vice president for marketing, told The Real Deal in an interview Wednesday.

Realty Mogul’s staff has grown from 10 to 80 over the past year, and Grant said the company plans to grow to as many as 120 workers in the near future.

The Los Angeles-based company is also planning to open a handful of regional offices, including an office in New York that would focus on originating new business here. This would allow Realty Mogul to compete directly with players in the space who have already established a presence here, such as Prodigy Network and Fundrise.

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Realty Mogul is a leader in the bustling crowdfunding space, with $70 million in funding and nearly 250 deals financed to date. Unlike some of its competitors, the firm seeks to be a “one-stop shop,” Grant said, funding both commercial and residential real estate. The company recently received a funding commitment of $250 million from institutional investors to fund large-balance commercial transitions, according to Grant.  Like many of its competitors, it deals with both individual accredited investors and institutional investors.

Sorenson Capital, a private equity firm, has funded nearly 40 ventures, according to its website, with a focus on aerospace manufacturing, health care, energy, business services and data analytics. This is its first venture into both crowdfunding and the real estate industry.

It’s been a heady two years for crowdfunding. There are now well over 100 players in the space and institutional capital is carving out a much larger presence. Firms like the Carlton Group and even Thor Equities are getting into the mix, and startups such as Fundrise, Patch of Land have had a lot of success raising venture capital money.