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Perchwell claims Sotheby’s from RealPlus
Startup has raised $4M in seed funding
A battle over the residential world’s back-end listing systems is heating up.
Perchwell — a startup that competes with On-Line Residential and RealPlus — said Sotheby’s International Realty will transition to from RealPlus its platform, joining more than 10 firms that switched vendors in recent months.
Other firms that have made the jump to Perchwell include CORE, Warburg Realty, Stribling & Associates, Berkshire Hathaway, Fox Residential and Sloane Square.
In addition to managing listings, Perchwell offers data and client communication to agents. Managers can monitor listings and sales to track their performance against rival firms.
Although companies like OLR and RealPlus dominated the real estate data space for decades, that’s changing. Last year, Douglas Elliman tapped StreetEasy to design a back-end listings portal for agents.
Fairbanks, who said Perchwell has raised $4 million in seed funding, said he doesn’t view OLR and RealPlus as competitors per se. “We’re offering a different product,” he said. “It’s enhancing data, supplementing data and giving [brokers] tools they need to interact with clients.”
The startup licenses its platform to brokerages and charges on a per-agent-per-month basis.
In December, Perchwell signed a lease for 3,500 square feet at 110 Greene Street, and it plans to grow from around 12 employees to 35 to 40 in short order.