The tech-based Toronto startup, Properly, has raised $44 million in a Series B funding round, the company announced on Wednesday.
The round was led by Bain Capital Ventures with participants including the co-founder and former CEO of Zillow, Spencer Rascoff, the co-founder and CEO of Opendoor, Eric Wu, Softbank investment partner, Lydia Jett, the former head of marketing at Facebook, Jonathan Ehrlich, and the co-founder and CEO of Wealthsimple, Mike Katchen.
Founded in 2018, Properly is a real estate brokerage with a model similar to U.S. iBuyers like Opendoor and Zillow Offers. It provides sellers a purchase agreement so they can leverage the equity in their home to buy a new one. If the old home doesn’t sell in 90 days, Properly buys it.
The company aims to use the funding to expand across Canada.
“We’re creating a future where Canadians can buy or sell a home with dramatically less friction and surprising simplicity,” Anshul Ruparell, co-founder and CEO of Properly, was quoted in the press release. “We’re bringing best-in-class tools and services to the market to support our customers from their initial home search through to closing a home sale. As a result, we’ve experienced exponential growth, but we’re just at the start of our journey. We’re excited to use this financing to bring better services to Canadians across the country.”
In addition to sale assurance, Properly offers in-house agents, insurance-free advancements of up to $20,000 for home improvements, instant home value estimates, and a listing platform to browse homes for sale.
“We have invested in several promising PropTech companies in the U.S. and our investment in Properly is our first in Canada,” Merritt Hummer, a partner at Bain Capital Ventures, was quoted in the press release. “The vision that Anshul and his team have to transform the home buying and selling experience and the unquestionable need for innovation in the Canadian real estate industry is what compelled us to invest in Properly. We are proud to lead their Series B financing to help accelerate their growth plans nationally.”
Last September, the startup raised $100 million during a funding round led by Silicon Valley Bank and i80 Group. As previously reported by Inman, it was the largest recorded funding round for a real estate technology company in Canada.
“I think the amount speaks quite loudly about the opportunity we have here,” Ruparell, told Inman in September. “I think the Canadian market has seen very little tech progress in real estate historically, while in the U.S., there are all these companies making it more convenient to buy and sell and none of it has made it here.”
