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Adwerx, the company that set the standard for easy digital advertising campaigns for real estate agents and brokerages, has landed a new funding round of $3 million, according to a May 17 announcement sent to Inman.
The funds came primarily from Savano Capital Partners and Observatory Capital. Grotech Ventures, Bull City Venture Partners, Alerion Ventures and the National Association of Realtors’ Second Century Ventures also participated.
“We’re thrilled to have the support of the investors who know the company and the industry best,” said CEO Michael Collins in a statement. “Their backing reaffirms our position as an innovator in the digital advertising space and reflects their confidence in our path forward.”
Adwerx is based in Durham, North Carolina, and helps the industry as well as mortgage professionals quickly create, manage and respond to display ads on some of the web’s most trafficked news and entertainment sites. It provides programs for individual agents, teams and enterprise accounts for large, multi-office operations.
Adwerx is largely responsible for introducing the concept of retargeting to the real estate space, the cookie-based tactic of re-serving advertisements to a common audience.
The funds will go toward general growth initiatives, “including the expansion of its automated advertising platform,” the company said.
Like many technology companies in real estate over the last 24 months, Adwerx was forced to reduce its headcount in 2022, laying off 40 people. However, new funding can be interpreted as a sign of confidence from the institutional players keeping an eye on the real estate front. The market’s status as a whole remains vague, but average prices are climbing as inventory remains low.
In 2021, it rolled out ad products capable of running motion graphics called Adwerx Motion. In September of 2022, marketing analytics company Vantage Market Research reported that the global motion graphics market revenue is expected to reach a value of $129.1 billion in 2028. It was valued at $64.3 billion in 2021 “and is expected to grow to exhibit a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.3% during the forecast period,” according to the research company.
In the announcement, general partner at Observatory Capital Jonathan Perl said, “Adwerx has built significant momentum in recent months despite the softness in the real estate and mortgage industries. With the additional capital, new management team and plans for product innovation, we are optimistic about the company’s potential.”
Adwerx’s last round of funding was in 2021, amounting to $14.5 million and largely focused on the company’s Customer Relationship Advertising or CRA feature. The tool connects Adwerx’s campaign development experience directly to clients’ CRM tools to identify and target leads with online campaigns per agent.
The funds were offered in a combination of equity and debt from Texas Capital Bank’s Technology Banking Group, Savano Capital Partners and existing investors, Inman reported.
