Residential listings database Nestio just raised $8 million in a Series A fundraising round, CEO Caren Maio told The Real Deal. Trinity Ventures led the round, bringing the total investment in Nestio to $11.85 million at a time when real estate technology continues to attract serious investor interest.
Trinity, a Silicon Valley-based firm extremely active in the real estate tech space, counts LoopNet, DotLoop, MyNewPlace and VTS among its investments. Founder and general partner Noel Fenton will join Nestio’s board of directors, Maio said. Previous investors Freestyle Capital, Joanne Wilson, David Cohen and Mike Lazerow also participated in the recent round.
After filling a void in New York City, which lacks a centralized multiple listings service, Nestio will use the infusion of cash to expand into new markets over the next two to three years, where it will mainly compete with local broker databases.
Maio said the expansion is something clients started to demand in recent months. “We have [New York] landlords with properties in other cities and they’ve approached us saying ‘We want to unlock you guys in Boston, Chicago, D.C.,’” said Maio. “You never want to say no to a customer.” The company also plans to double its staff of 27 within a year as it grows its engineering, product and sales teams, and just brought on Scott Wolfgang, a former partner at Quotidian Ventures, to be its new CFO.
Maio and co-founder Mike O’Toole launched Nestio in 2011 as a consumer-facing listings aggregator. In 2013, the company switched gears and became a listing management software for landlords, who use the cloud-based system to manage inventory, send broker blasts and track their rental portfolios’ performance. Last year, the Real Estate Board of New York integrated Nestio into its RLS system.
Nestio, which no longer has a consumer product, works with other listings portals like StreetEasy and RLS by sending real-time data about its landlords’ listings. Clients include Two Trees Management, Windsor Property Management and Time Equities, plus brokerages Halstead Property, Bold New York and others.
The company claims to have generated $20 million in profits for clients, and says it has 40 percent of the city’s rental inventory in its system. According to Nestio, 80 percent of the city’s brokers are on its email distribution list. Maio declined to discuss Nestio’s revenues.
Real estate technology accelerator MetaProp NYC estimated that real estate investment globally topped $140 million during the third quarter of this year, including VTS’ $21 million Series B round. In September, residential brokerage Compass raised $50 million for an $800 million valuation.