Real estate giant Realogy has announced the 15 real estate startups that will pitch their wares to execs at the firm’s third annual “FWD” Innovation Summit in San Francisco on June 23.
Realogy founded the event in 2013 to give its execs an early look at early-stage real estate startups. The startups themselves get in front of the owner of the nation’s largest brokerage, NRT LLC, and operator of some of the world’s biggest brands, including Century 21 Real Estate and Coldwell Banker Real Estate.
This year, the National Association of Realtors jumped on board as the event’s sole sponsor, giving the trade group a “first look” at the participants. NAR’s investment wing, Second Century Ventures LLC, runs an annual tech accelerator, REach; the 2015 class includes seven startups.
This year’s “FWD” participants are:
- Avenue: A real-time smartphone app that quickly connects real estate agents with consumers 24/7 with free advice about buying or selling real estate. (Toronto)
- BoostUp: A social savings platform that helps people save for a down payment on their next home or car purchase. (Detroit)
- Curaytor: A real estate marketing software for agents that includes a website, automated Facebook advertising, and contact management. (Orlando, Florida)
- Dizzle: Dizzle helps affiliates build meaningful relationships with agents by providing an agent-branded mobile app, as well as the ability to send push notifications and share preferred vendor lists with clients. (San Diego)
- EMTransfer: EMTransfer facilitates electronic collection, depositing and tracking of earnest money online. (Eagle, Idaho)
- Flipt: Flipt enables real estate agents to advertise locally to motivated home sellers on mobile and social apps. (Seattle)
- HomeTrackr: HomeTrackr provides homebuyers with easy access to critical information about the history of a home. (Charleston, South Carolina)
- Homevibe: Homevibe provides on-demand home inspector insights for $20 about the home upfront and distributed to prospective buyers. (Seattle)
- Keep: A post-close marketing system that allows real estate and mortgage professionals to automatically send homeowners a personalized email “statement” about their home and mortgage four times a year with brokerage and agent branding. (Orlando, Florida)
- Loop & Tie: A gifting platform to help agents build relationships by enabling their clients to choose the gift they prefer to receive from their agent. (Austin, Texas)
- NotaryCam: NotaryCam provides document notarization online – in minutes. (Los Angeles)
- Solo: An online platform that connects homebuyers with buy-side agents offering unbundled services. Buyers get a 3 percent rebate on the home’s closing price, and agents can fill their schedules with the services they wish to perform, at prices they set. (Durham, North Carolina)
- Spacio Pro: Spacio Pro uses beacon technology to enable proximity marketing solutions that real estate agents can use at open houses and offices. (New York City and Vancouver)
- Syncro: A lead conversion tool that sends an instant Web chat to the agent when a lead form is filled out rather than an email, to create a faster response and increase overall conversions. (Kelowna, British Columbia)
- Tactile Finance: An application that gives real estate professionals the ability to help customers figure out their best options for financing their home while maximizing net sale proceeds. (New York City)
In addition to winning Realogy’s business, the startups will compete with each other for a grand prize of $25,000, chosen by a panel of judges made up of Realogy execs.
Last year, 3-D virtual tour firm Matterport wowed the six Realogy judges to win the grand prize.
Editor’s note: Solo recently moved its headquarters from Chesterfield, Missouri, to Durham, North Carolina, and this story has been updated to reflect the change.
