Updater, an address-change app for relocating consumers that can also serve as a marketing tool for real estate professionals, has closed an $8 million funding round that includes a commitment from Second Century Ventures, the National Association of Realtors’ venture capital fund.
The Series A round also included investments from SoftBank Capital, IA Ventures and Commerce Ventures, according to Updater.
Updater offers a platform that lets users seamlessly update their addresses on over 10,000 accounts and subscriptions, file their official U.S. Postal Service mail-forwarding form and transfer and connect utilities among other address-change tasks.
The app generates revenue by wrapping its service into a marketing product that it sells to real estate brokerages and sales agents, mortgage professionals, moving companies, and property managers.
For $149 a year, an agent may send an unlimited number of clients emails inviting them to use a version of Updater that’s branded with the agent’s headshot and contact information.
Second Century Ventures’ bet on Updater comes after the NAR subsidiary helped nurture Updater in the trade group’s startup incubator REach for about a year (Second Century Ventures runs the incubator). Updater was one of seven companies in REach’s inaugural class of 2013, which also included BombBomb, Lumentus, Planwise, Reach150, Treater, and Workface.
Updater is the second REach participant Second Century Ventures has invested in. In January, Planwise closed a funding round with an investment from SCV for an undisclosed amount.
“Working with NAR and Second Century Ventures has been a fantastic experience for our team,” said David Greenberg, founder and CEO of Updater. “We’ve learned what real estate professionals want and need from our product, allowing us to constantly improve our business solutions.”
Constance Freedman, vice president of strategic investments at NAR, said in a statement that Updater “made an immediate positive impact as a charter member of the NAR REach technology accelerator program, where real estate agents and brokers first used the product to provide added value to their clients.”
She added that “Updater solves a real problem and will be hugely valuable to the real estate industry.”
Predictive marketing firm SmartZip Analytics is the first member of the REach tech accelerator class of 2014.
Updater intern Zach Pritchard explains the company’s services at January’s Real Estate Connect conference in New York City.
