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Power Buyer Knock has closed a previously announced $220 million funding round and revamped its board of directors, giving a representative of the National Association of Realtors’ venture capital arm, Second Century Ventures, a role as an observer on the board.
Ian Sigalow, co-founder and managing partner of the venture capital firm Greycroft, has joined Knock’s board as a voting director, while Dave Garland, managing partner of Second Century Ventures, will attend board meetings as an observer.
Sigalow and Garland replace Raju Rishi of RRE Ventures and UCLA lecturer Paul Habibi on Knock’s board. A spokesperson for Knock said Rishi had reached the end of his six-year term, and that Habibi also “rolled off” the board “due to the fact that as a private company we no longer need an audit chair.”
Second Century Ventures and Greycroft participated in a $220 million funding round, announced in March, when Knock also disclosed it was putting off plans for an initial public offering and laying off nearly half its workforce. Seeking funding from private investors allows Knock to continue with plans to expand into 90 markets by the end of the year, the company said at the time. After expanding into five new markets in Washington in April and adding jumbo loans to its offerings, Knock is available in 75 markets.
The latest round, which brings the total debt and equity raised by Knock to date to $900 million, was led by Foundry Group, with participation by existing Knock investors, including RRE, First American Financial, Company Ventures and filmmaker and actor M. Night Shyamalan. New investors included former DoubleClick CEO Kevin Ryan, the founder and CEO AlleyCorp.
In addition to cofounders Sean Black and Jamie Glenn, Knock’s board of directors includes Foundry Group Managing Partner Seth Levine, First American Chief Innovation Officer Paul Hurst, Airbnb Chief Security Officer Vijaya Kaza and Yelp COO Jed Nachman.
Sean Black
“We are grateful for the confidence our newest and existing investors have shown in our business and the opportunity before us,” Black said in a statement. “We believe this underscores the fact that our platform is now more important than ever as homebuyers struggle to compete with cash buyers and are increasingly embracing new ways to buy and sell homes. We are excited to add Ian and Dave to our board. Both bring successful track records of helping to scale fintech and other software companies and their guidance will be invaluable.”
Ian Sigalow
Sigalow, who founded payment encryption pioneer StrongData, is on the investment committee for all Greycroft funds, which invest in consumer, enterprise software, fintech and digital health companies. Greycroft’s real-estate related investments include Enkasa, Humming Homes, Pacaso and Zumper.
Dave Garland
As a managing partner of Second Century Ventures, Garland is also a manager at NAR’s real estate technology scale-up program, REACH, which selected Knock as one of eight companies to receive program backing in 2021.
Second Century Ventures has invested in more than 100 real estate tech companies, including BombBomb, CartoFront, Cleverly, Curbio, DocuSign, HouseCanary, Notarize, Planwise, Propy, RealScout, Sindeo, SmartZip and Ylopo.
Knock investor First American is also a backer of venture-funded proptech companies including Lev, Offerpad, Orchard, Pacaso, Ribbon, Side Inc., and Sundae.
San Francisco-based Side, which provides branding and technology to independent brokerages and agent teams, had been on an IPO track but recently downsized by about 10 percent, citing potential short-term impacts of market volatility.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct that Dave Garland will serve as an observer on Knock’s board of directors, which will now consist of seven voting members instead of eight. In announcing changes to Knock’s board Tuesday, the company issued a press release stating that Knock had expanded its board, and which did not state that Garland will serve as an observer, rather than a voting director, on Knock’s board.
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