States Title, a digital title startup that is trying to reimagine what it sees as the “ancient” homebuying process, announced Thursday that it has raised $123 million.
The new cash is part of the company’s Series C round that was led by venture capital firm Greenspring Associates. In a statement, States Title founder and CEO Max Simkoff said that going forward his company plans to invest further in its “machine intelligence platform to support the goal of providing an instant closing experience at a lower cost.”
Max Simkoff
“Right now we are witnessing an unprecedented shift in the structural foundation of the real estate industry, and this new funding will allow States Title to provide enhanced support for lenders, real estate agents and homeowners, as well as provide a solid foundation for continued technological investment in the face of future economic uncertainty,” Simkoff added.
Simkoff founded States Title in 2016. Since then, the company has made a handful of acquisitions and grew its transaction volume by 100 times between 2018 and 2019, according to it statement Thursday.
States Title hopes to apply modern technology to the “ancient title and escrow processes to provide an instant customer closing experience, enable mortgage originators and realtors to be more efficient, and lower costs for everyone involved,” the statement explains.
“The most pressing need in our industry right now is to remove friction and cost from mortgage closings, and to do so with solutions that can deliver fully remote, instant, digital experiences,” Simkoff also said.
The company is one of a handful of firms that share the goal of streamlining the closing process. Others include Qualia, also a title company that emphasizes technology and all-digital closings, as well as Notarize, which among other things allows users to rely on remote notaries. Not every company injecting technology into the closing process has the same strategy, but overall the takeaway from recent years is that there’s a critical mass of disruptors zeroing in on one of the more stubbornly analog parts of the real estate transaction.
Jim Lim
States Title’s statement says that its clients include some of the largest lenders in the U.S., and the firm’s track record was clearly enough to impress Greenspring. In a statement, Jim Lim, a managing partner at the venture capital company, said that he was “thrilled to support States Title as they advance the vision of an instant mortgage that closes with one tap.”
“Especially in the current economic climate,” Lim continued, “the mortgage industry needs to be re-imagined with transformative technological solutions to reduce costs and improve the customer experience. States Title is leading the vanguard of this transformation.
