Reggora, a startup that is automating residential real estate appraisals has raised $3 million in a seed round, taking ground in a niche industry quickly being filled by tech firms.
Boston Seed Capital and Spark Capital led the latest funding round, which the Boston-based startup announced Friday. The firm says its two-way platform is used by appraisers and lenders to reduce the time it takes to put together an appraisal. The new funding will enable the startup to take expand its service from New England to a national base.
The firm enters a fast-growing demand for automated appraisal services that several startups are rushing in to fill. Bowery Valuation, which last week announced a $12 million series A funding round, has focused on multifamily and mixed-use properties, and has signaled ambitions to expand its commercial appraisals business.
Alex Finkelstein, a general partner at Spark Capital, said Reggora would increase transparency in the appraisal industry.
Spark Capital’s investment is a big win for the startup, as the prominent venture capital firm has been behind prominent funding round in prominent companies, including Twitter and Trello. In May last year, the investor was involved in a $40 million series B funding round for Hello Alfred, an in-home assistant and property management startup.
Led by CEO and co-founder Brian Zitin, the firm will indirectly compete against incumbent middle companies that provide appraisal software, such as CoreLogic, which came to prominence after the introduction of the Home Valuation Code of Conduct in 2008.
“After the housing crisis, and the shenanigans that took place, [regulators] made it so the lender can’t talk to appraisers, directly,” Zitin said. “So we are automating that through this Uber-style platform.”