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
Lawrence-based Ainstein taking flight with jetpack founder in Red Bull Air Race
When the founder of JetPack Aviation blasts to the sky later this month in Red Bull’s Air Race World Championship, it will be a testament to the innovation and quality at Ainstein, a Kansas radar tech firm, said Bryan C. Boots. “Although our products are widely deployed today in unmanned aviation (drone) applications, this will…
CreativeMornings KC relaunches with art culture, business community in focus
Artists are George Brooks’ people, the Crema co-founder and a co-host of the newly relaunched CreativeMornings KC guild said. “I love that CreativeMornings fosters the idea that we can all view our work, hobbies, and life through lenses of creativity,” Brooks said. “By bringing together a community of people who value creativity, it bridges the…
Advancing women as important now as ever, says STEMMy Awards leader
Women leave tech-intensive industries at a higher rate than their male counterparts because of a lack of encouragement and support, said Renee Keffer, citing a 2014 report by Catalyst. The fifth annual STEMMy Awards Gala aims to change that narrative in Kansas City, Keffer, co-chair of the event, said, but organizers need help: Nominations remain…
Kauffman Foundation’s Philip Gaskin sees entrepreneur ecosystems in the humble snowflake
Editor’s note: This content was sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation but independently produced by Startland News. When it comes to developing a startup, there’s no better training ground than a political campaign, Philip Gaskin said. “You’re building movements of people to do extraordinary things,” said Gaskin, director of entrepreneurial communities and chief of…