Second Century Ventures, the venture capital fund of the National Association of Realtors, has invested $3 million in distributed cloud backup service Symform, forming a "strategic partnership" that will benefit NAR members, the group said.
NAR’s venture fund joined an $11 million Series B round of funding from 2012, which included financing from Longworth Venture Partners, OVP Venture Partners and WestRiver Capital, the companies said.
With the investment, Second Century Ventures gets a seat on Symform’s board of directors, and Realtors gain access to data management resources "they can use to organize and protect the information of homebuyers, sellers and investors in the real estate transaction," said NAR CEO Dale Stinton in a statement. Stinton is also president of Second Century Ventures, which is an investor in DocuSign, ifbyphone and Xceligent.
Symform says its Cloud Storage Network provides security and performance by encrypting, shredding and globally distributing data. Customers join the network by contributing excess local drive space. In exchange, they receive free backup of their own data in the cloud.
Constance Freedman, managing director of Second Century Ventures, will represent NAR on Symform’s board of directors. Freedman is also NAR’s vice president of strategic investments, and the managing director of the trade group’s new "tech accelerator" program, REach, which will help up to 10 companies develop useful tech tools for Realtors and others.
This week NAR announced that video email marketing software provider BombBomb has been selected as the first company to participate in REach. REach is accepting applications through Jan. 25.
