Curb appeal attracts investors to $850K round for real estate tech firm RealQuantum
November 29, 2018 | Austin Barnes
A year of steady growth will help Kansas City real estate tech firm RealQuantum end 2018 with the close of its first round of seed funding — securing $850,000 in investments, revealed Mark Davis.
Mark Davis, RealQuantum
“We closed a couple of times actually — people just kept showing up at the last minute wanting in,” Davis, RealQuantum’s CEO, said of the company’s inaugural investment round that formally closed in mid-October after a launch in late July.
Touting a product that makes tedious real estate appraisals easy, RealQuantum is a web-based narrative appraisal software and cloud-hosted comps database that modernizes the real estate appraisal industry. Capabilities of the product have excited metro investors, Davis added.
“We thought we were going to bootstrap through the entire journey,” Davis said. “[We realized] if we want to go fast, we have to have some acceleration [in terms of] capital.”
Originally leery of taking on outside support, investors — including lead backers Brad Bradley, co-founder of NIC; Steve Tesdahl; and Ned O’Connor, founder of Waterford Property Company — started reaching out to Davis and his team with interest in RealQuantum six months after the company’s launch, making the decision to open a funding round a no brainer, he said.
“[Its encouraging] when experts in the industry are willing to put up their own money for your venture even before you have a product available,” Davis said amazed and encouraged.
The round was led by Dan Craig and Tim Keller, two people Davis credits with making the company’s growth possible. Lead investors will serve as partners who bring value to the company either in expertise, access to new markets or both, he explained.
The company participated this summer in the Enterprise Center of Johnson County’s Pitch Perfect boot camp, as well as presenting on the 1 Million Cups Kansas City stage.
A 2018 LaunchKC grants competitor, RealQuantum is set to end the year with funding exceeding the $1 million mark — between bootstrapping and angel investments — an accomplishment that’s so far positioned the company to grow its development team.
“I didn’t have to jump on any airplanes and we didn’t have to deal with 200 pitches,” Davis said as a testament to local support for RealQuantum. “We were able to close without ever doing much [formal] pitching at all.”
Featured Business
2018 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
Crema co-founder details expansion experiment at Thinking Bigger breakfast
Crema’s work is all about proximity, said George Brooks, seeking to clarify potential misperceptions about the digital product agency’s foray into markets outside Kansas City. “We’ve been running an experiment,” the Crema co-founder told a crowd at Thinking Bigger Business Media’s recent Big Breakfast. “We’re from Kansas City, but probably 80 percent of our clients…
Techweek 100 list released: Dozens of KC’s top cultivators, ambassadors and innovators
Techweek Kansas City on Friday released its Techweek 100 list of the premier leaders pushing innovation in Kansas City. The collection of cultivators, ambassadors and innovators is a who’s who of familiar names across the startup, entrepreneurship and tech communities. Released in the runup to Techweek KC’s Oct. 8-12 festivities, the list isn’t a ranking,…
Not high-growth or a tech startup? AltCap Your Biz $10K prize could be the boost you need
A $10,000 prize can mean a world of difference for the right entrepreneurial dream, said Davin Gordon. “There’s not a ton of opportunities for small businesses to not only pitch their business and go through that process, but actually have an opportunity to win some money,” he said. Entering its fourth year on the startup…
River Watch Beef envisions pure range of ‘farm-to-fork’ products delivered to your door
The beef industry is broken, said Chris Kovac, sitting just an ironic stone’s throw away from the historic Kansas City Stockyards. “We should all educate ourselves on what we’re eating and who we’re buying our food from,” the founder of River Watch Beef said, impassioned as he shared his concern for the health of consumers.…