PropTech startup zavvie recently announced the completion of a $1.75 million inside round from existing investors, including Second Century Ventures, backed by the National Association of REALTORS®.
Currently, more than 60,000 real estate sales professionals have access to zavvie-powered platforms, which typically present over 100 offers a day nationwide, according to the company.
“iBuyers and Bridge Buyers are buying more homes than ever in almost every major market,” said Lane Hornung, zavvie co-founder and CEO in a release. “The market opportunity for zavvie is massive as we are uniquely positioned at the center of this growth. By keeping agents involved in all real estate selling options, zavvie facilitates the convergence between the traditional industry incumbents with the new disruptors and innovators.”
Hornung added, “zavvie has arguably achieved the fastest adoption by the largest residential brokerages of any software platform.”
The addition of broker partners, whose agents request purchase offers from verified buyer partners, has accelerated the growth of zavvie’s marketplace.
Hornung notes that PropTech currently is attracting more than $350 million a week in new capital, according to “Weekly Proptech,” published by the Center for Real Estate Technology & Innovation. Investors are attracted by the size and scale of the real estate industry, which is home to America’s largest asset class and annual transactions exceeding $1.6 trillion in total value.
“Our platform aggregates homes for purchases from tens of thousands of agents who represent millions of homeowners and delivers deals to enterprise buyers with billions of capital to place,” he said.
Mike DelPrete, a global real estate tech strategist, iBuyer expert and member of zavvie’s Board of Directors, purports that the market trend of more people selling their homes to a verified institutional buyer versus another individual buyer will continue to grow significantly over the next several years.
“iBuyers survived COVID and are rebounding to their pre-pandemic levels,” DelPrete stated, “and we are seeing an even bigger growth surge among the buy-before-you-sell bridge providers.”
Hornung agrees, noting that the explosion in the popularity of bridge solutions is driving zavvie’s most recent growth. zavvie has added several new verified Bridge Buyers, including EasyKnock, Knock and Ribbon, as Verified Buyer Partners.
“The biggest development is the emergence and strong consumer acceptance of modern bridge solutions. Modern bridge is the solution for the times. I expect to see more iBuyers launch and prioritize bridge offerings in the months ahead,” Hornung tells RISMedia. “Looking out further, I see all of these selling solutions blending together and being offered by everyone in the market, including brokerages and agents.”
Hornung adds, “The traditional industry is not sitting back and watching from the sidelines this time around. They are adapting and innovating for their clients. As a result, these new selling options will become regular and expected, essentially routine. Consumers will seek out modern agents who are informed and well-versed on all the options. Younger agents will never know the day when you couldn’t sell a house instantly or buy a house with someone else’s money.”
According to the company, zavvie’s Verified Buyer Partners—including iBuyers, Bridge Buyers and Listing Concierges—are collectively on track to purchase more than 85,000 homes in 2021.
Listing Concierge partner Curbio, which provides a “repair and renovate pre-sale, pay when you close” service for sellers, is another recent addition to the zavvie marketplace.
zavvie also recently announced a partnership with Leading Real Estate Companies of the World®, a global network of 550 top independent real estate firms.
“zavvie’s mission is to empower the modern agent to bring all options to home sellers on every transaction,” says Hornung. “We have our sights firmly set on expanding our platform to over 100,000 modern agents this year. To make that happen, we will continue to partner with the top modern brokerages and market leaders across the U.S. Simultaneously, the number of Verified Buyers who want to be part of zavvie’s marketplace is growing exponentially. They want to bring their solutions to sellers and their agents. It’s a true win-win for everyone, and the network effect is really kicking in.”
For more information, please visit zavvie.com.
