Flat-fee brokerage Reali announced this week that it has raised $9 million in its latest funding round, adding to the tens of millions of dollars the company has previously pulled in from investors while rapidly expanding across California.
Amit Haller
The new money is the second part of a funding round that began last year when investors handed Reali $20 million, a company spokesperson told Inman Thursday. In a statement, Reali co-founder Amit Haller said that the new investment will allow “us to continue our momentum while introducing additional services such as escrow and title, home warranties and insurance, to name a few.”
Venture capital firm Group 11 led this week’s funding round. Zeev Ventures and Signia Ventures, both of which have previously invested in Reali, also participated.
This latest cash infusion also comes less than a month after Reali announced that it had acquired Lenda, a startup mortgage lender. The plan is to integrate Lenda into Reali Loans, a lending service, to create “a seamless end-to-end real estate experience while saving thousands of dollars in commission fees,” according to a company statement.
A statment Thursday added that in 2018 Reali “more than tripled its transaction volume and has grown its headcount by nearly 40 percent.”
Reali first launched in 2016 in the Bay Area. It has since been expanding into other markets and today touts its availability throughout California.
Reali represents both buyers and sellers and uses an app to facilitate communication during a transaction. Consumers on both sides of a transaction pay a flat fee — which varies depending on the price of the property — and the company claims that it saves people an average of $20,000.
While the prospect of paying a flat-fee rather than a more traditional percentage-based commission is theoretically appealing to many consumers, the longterm viability of the model is still hotly debated within the real estate industry. That debate became even more intense this week when Purplebricks, a U.K.-headquartered flat-fee brokerage, announced it was pulling out of the Australian market. The company also said that it is conducting a full review of its U.S. business.
For its part, Reali has a years-long track record of raising millions during funding rounds, and with its latest haul has pulled in a total of $39 million from investors, a company spokesperson confirmed Thursday. After Reali raised $20 million last year, Haller said the company would use the cash “to accelerate our product roadmap beyond the app and expand our market base to new cities throughout the U.S.”
Reali did not go into extensive detail on how it plans to use its new cash, but did note in its statement that it is currently hiring software engineers, real estate professionals and marketing team members.
The company’s website also states that it plans to expand into additional markets “soon.”
