The early-stage venture firm Peak Ventures, announced that it has made an investment in the Salt Lake City-based startup company Homie, with the participation of angel investor, Mike Levinthal.
"The Homie platform takes a whole new approach to how people buy and sell homes," said Jeff Burningham, Founding and Managing Partner at Peak Ventures. "We are excited to be backing the Homie team who come with years of experience in the real estate technology space that they can use to solve this big problem."
According to their press release in PR Newswire, Homie is a start-up peer-to-peer marketplace that lets buyers, builders, and sellers of homes meet, negotiate, and transact without a middle-man or high commission fees.
"I've known the team at Peak for a long time and really respect what they've accomplished with their other companies," said Hanna, "we share similar values, which makes it a great fit for us. This investment shows they have confidence that this team can accomplish our goal of changing the way people buy and sell homes."
Homie makes finding, buying, and selling a home easier and less expensive by using revolutionary software and shared economies. Buyers and sellers can save tens of thousands of dollars in commission fees when they are using Homie, compared to the traditional use of real estate agents.
"We feel like several factors are coming together to make it possible to launch Homie right now," said Homie's CEO, Johnny Hanna. "If you look at the success of companies like Uber and Airbnb, you see that consumer behavior is shifting towards on-demand services in a shared-economy model. Real estate is one of the last big markets that hasn't really changed in decades. Our goal with Homie is to do just that by creating a seamless experience that allows people to find, buy, and sell homes without an agent, saving thousands of dollars in commission fees."
The founding team of Homie consists of: Johnny Hanna, Homie's CEO, past president of Entrata and Trionfo; Mike Trionfo, Homie's CTO, an Entrata co-founder who has also led development at IBFX and Domo; Matt Thorne, Homie's CLO, is an attorney who is focused on mergers and acquisitions, venture capital, and emerging growth with Salt Lake City law firms Holland & Hart and Stoel Rives; and Mike Peregrina, Homie's CFO, who comes from an investment banking and investment background with the Mercato Partners and Valtus Capital Group.
