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An agent safety and productivity platform called Tether RE has been named the winner of the National Association of Realtors’ sixth annual Pitch Battle at the Innovation, Opportunity & Investment (iOi) Summit, the organization announced Thursday.
Dan Weisman | NAR
Second Century Ventures, NAR’s strategic investment arm, held the Pitch Battle in Chicago this year at which competing companies showed off their tools and resources built for the commercial and residential real estate industries.
Tether RE’s platform merges safety features with productivity tools so that agents can be protected while completing everyday tasks.
“This year’s Pitch Battle showcased exceptional innovations that are setting new benchmarks in the real estate sector,” Dan Weisman, NAR director of innovation strategy, said in a statement. “The ingenuity displayed by Tether RE represents the progressive strides we support at the iOi Summit and NAR’s ongoing efforts to enhance the services provided to real estate professionals and consumers alike. We congratulate Tether RE on their outstanding achievement.”
Vanessa Martin | Tether RE
Tether RE’s co-founder, Vanessa Martin, highlighted in her winning pitch that 30,000 agents were victims of violent crimes in 2023, according to NAR data, demonstrating the need for additional safety measures in the industry.
Martin said the platform’s features include 24-hour safety monitoring, client verification, SOS alerts, proximity safety times and fall and crash alerts. The platform also assists in productivity through turn-by-turn navigation, automatic mileage and expense tracking and personalized agent branding.
“We are proud of the platform we’ve created, and we know it will help agents when they need it most,” Martin said. “It’s time to focus on what matters, because the most important part of any deal is making it home safely.”
In a review of Tether’s safety features, Inman critic and reporter Craig Rowe raised issue with the company’s tendency to weigh down the app with ancillary feature but touted its easy set up and activation, which should help ensure that users aren’t fumbling around with it before a showing starts.
Coleton Boyer | Tuesday
The startup will be awarded 15,000 and a booth at NAR’s annual conference, NAR NXT, in November for winning the competition.
The competition’s Crowd Favorite award, as voted on by an in-person and virtual audience, went to Tuesday, a social MLS app exclusively for agents.
Tuesday’s CEO, Coleton Boyer, said the app’s ease of use made it as simple as the average Tuesday.
“It’s the energy of your Tuesday meeting, the ease of your Instagram feed and the exact same data you get on the MLS,” Boyer said.
