Realty Mogul, a Los Angeles-based site where accredited investors can pool their money to back real estate deals, is going live today.
The company announced in a statement that AH Capital, a real estate investment company in Los Angeles, raised $110,000 using Realty Mogul's platform for real estate fundraising. The money was raised while Realty Mogul was in private beta and is being used to purchase and rehabilitate a duplex in Los Angeles, CA.
The company, originally called "Real Estate With Friends," is democratizing an industry that has historically been an elite club, said cofounder Justin Hughes. "Now, you don't need to know a guy," he said, according to the Verge. "You know us. We're your guy."
CEO Jilliene Helman says "we're introducing our investors to new real estate investments and allowing them to invest in their own backyard alongside some of the best private real estate investment companies, like AH Capital."
Realty Mogul was incubated by the Microsoft/TechStars Accelerator in Seattle, and it's also announcing a $500,000 seed round (more on that in a second). Participating angel investors include Gust CEO David S. Rose, Gordon Stephenson (who's on the board of directors at Zillow), and serial entrepreneur Sky Kruse.
Helman said that one of her big goals is to build investor trust, according to Tech Crunch. Realty Mogul links to all of the real estate companies' LinkedIn profiles, so users can see whether they're connected to the company in some way. For now, the site is limited to properties in Washington and California, although investors can participate in anywhere. Helman said she plans to expand gradually.
"We are a tech startup, and tech startups are supposed to grow as quickly as humanly possible," Helman said. "But we're a financial services company first and a tech startup second, so I want to grow as quickly but as conservatively as possible. We need to make sure we're keeping investor protections first."
