When you think about the vacuum cleaners of real estate tech, companies like Zillow Group, realtor.com-owner Move and Constellation Software might come to mind.
But a single real estate broker also bears mention.
Ben Kinney, who owns several Keller Williams Realty brokerages, now presides over five tech firms.
His technology company, Ben Kinney Companies Tech Division, has acquired the real estate software provider Blueroof360, further advancing his goal of building end-to-end systems for real estate agents, brokerages and teams. Kinney declined to disclose terms of the deal.
Ben Kinney
“We realize the path to doing that isn’t just through development, it’s also through acquisitions of companies like Blueroof,” Kinney said of forging holistic industry software. He added that he plans to make more acquisitions in the future.
“There was just a lot of similarities in our styles and what we’re trying to accomplish,” said Blueroof360 CEO Jarad Hull. “[Kinney] has got some pretty lofty goals in terms of what he wants to do.”
The acquisition will allow Ben Kinney Companies Tech Division to offer three new products, all with tie-ins to other Kinney tools:
- Realvolution, a low-cost marketing platform for real estate agents that will include a listing-search website, customer relationship management system (CRM) and integration with blogging platform ActiveRain
- Blueroof360’s flagship platform for brokerages, which includes a customizable listing-search site, CRM and email marketing tool
- A product for agent teams that combines Blueroof360’s platform with Brivity, a customer relationship and transaction management system also owned by Kinney.
“We’re working on becoming much more of a platform with Brivity as the base,” Hull said.
Blueroof360 also offers AreaPulse, a property-report widget that can be embedded on real estate sites, and BlueCma, a CMA tool designed to generate seller leads. Both could also be baked into other Kinney products.
The deal adds to a portfolio of four other companies:
- Brivity, a customer relationship and transaction management system
- ActiveRain, a real estate blogging platform that Kinney bought from Zillow Group
- Kwkly, a text-message lead-generation company (also purchased from Zillow Group)
- Blossor, a national listing portal
