OJO Labs announces that it has closed Series D funding round and raised $62.5-million, and acquired California-based home listing site Movoto.
The Austin, Texas-based real estate company, in its statement, said that it had closed its fourth financing round led by Wafra--an investment firm that manages about $24 billion in assets and commitments. Other participants include Breyer Capita, LiveOak Venture Partners, Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures, and Royal Bank of Canada.
In March, the five-year-old firm was able to raise $45 million. The latest fundraising round raised $62.5 million, OJO's largest raised capital so far. The company was not really planning to raise money, OJO CEO and co-founder John Berkowitz said, but the opportunity to acquire the listing company and to raise money based on investor interest came along.
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According to the Forbes report, a recent OJO Labs study revealed that consumers seek guidance throughout their home buying journey: 64 percent said they need answers to their questions; 68 percent said they value support in understanding their home preferences; 72 percent said they need guidance in finding a home that is the perfect fit for them.
OJO Labs transforms the home buying and selling experience by combining human and machine intelligence for personalized property recommendations and homebuyer and seller guides. With the acquisition of Movoto, America's fastest-growing top 5 residential listing site, OJO Labs will able to scale rapidly and offer a seamless, personalized technology to millions of home buyers and sellers, the announcement said.
Movoto CEO Imtiyaz Haque said that Movoto's greatest strength is its fully optimized real estate website. And with the deeply personalized consumer experience provided by OJO Lab combined with Movoto's optimized site, results in a unique scaled end-to-end solution.
The latest acquisition is OJO Lab's third following its October 2018 purchase of Wolfnet Technologies - Minnesota-based MLS data standardization provider--and the acquisition of RealSavvy--a real estate for brokers and agents.
For OJO Labs to build its digital personal assistant experience, it needs a top-notch listing database, which Berkowitz said to explain the reason for acquiring Wolfnet. At the same time, RealSavvy will provide real estate agents with the tools, and Movoto will bring in the consumers.
Last May, OJO Labs, in partnership with Realogy, launched a new tool called Conversion Boost, which promises to lower the cost of online leads and helps increase conversion rate 200 percent above the industry averages.
Between February 3 and March 23, 2020, OJO Lab's AI-powered app recorded an increase in the number of openings by 103 percent. Berkowitz said that people using their product feel like they can search on their own terms, and so amidst the pandemic, their metrics soared because their product adapts to how a consumer wants to search.
OJO Labs has raised a total of $134 million in four years and has made three acquisitions, but Berkowitz said there no plans to go public and cash out yet. The company instead will be doubling down on its values and mission. OJO Labs is a mission-driven company, he said, and they want to help consumers make better decisions.
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