A new company that sees itself as the “Stripe of real estate,” and which aims to provide both technology and cash for other startups in, for example, the Power Buying sector — came out of stealth mode on Tuesday.
The company, dubbed Setpoint, is the latest venture from Ben Rubenstein, a serial entrepreneur who previously founded lead-vetting company Opcity and who served as chief revenue officer of Realtor.com.
Setpoint aims to “enable proptech companies to offer their customers frictionless homebuying and selling options including contingent-free all-cash offers,” according to a statement. What that specifically means is the company provides a software platform that handles document collection and verification, and automates parts of the closing process, among other things.
Additionally, Setpoint provides funding to capital intensive companies, such as Power Buyers, so they can continue to close transactions. In total, the company has secured $615 million in allocated capital that it can provide to other firms, it said in a statement.
Setpoint originally launched last year but remained in stealth mode until Tuesday. According to the statement, companies including Homeward, Flyhomes, Reali, and Houwzer are all already using Setpoint’s platform, and the company expects to help facilitate 25,000 transactions this year.
Ben Rubenstein
Rubenstein is serving as Setpoint’s president and co-founder. He previously co-founded digital marketing firm Yodle in 2005, then went on to found Opcity in 2015. Realtor.com later acquired Opcity, and Rubenstein ended up working as the News Corp-owned portal’s chief revenue officer.
In a conversation with Inman, Rubenstein explained that as real estate startups in the Power Buying space, among other arenas, scale up they need technology to improve their efficiency, as well as more capital to fund their deals. Setpoint wants to help such companies grow.
“It’s a Wild West out there right now,” Rubenstein said. “We want to help them standardize.”
Rubenstein added that by using Setpoint, other companies can secure the operating capital they need more quickly and efficiently, than if they had to go to more traditional sources of credit.
Stuart Wall
Setpoint’s team also includes Stuart Wall, who serves as co-founder and CEO. Wall described Setpoint as the “Stripe for real estate,” comparing the company to the widely used transaction management startup that powers websites and ecommerce for other firms.
“We’re this infrastructure layer that other people can build on top of,” Wall added.
Though Power Buyers — or companies that offer services, such as cash backing to buyers — is one of the most obvious applications of Setpoint’s platform, the company can also work with startups focusing on other models, such as fractional ownership.
“Setpoint is exclusively focused on modern real-estate transactions like bridge funding, fractional ownership, and home equity platforms,” Wall added in the statement. “We’ve developed our tools from the ground up for proptech companies interested in offering more innovative services.”
