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
Mother-daughter businesses connected by sustainability, faith, yearning for community
Quoleshna Elbert wants to get — and give — the most bang for her buck, she said. “I’m the person who wants to kill three birds with one stone,” explained the founder of Community Local, an eco-friendly T-shirt brand based in Kansas City. Such drive is hereditary. “We want to be able to go deeper…
17-year-old entrepreneurs find financial, moral support for My Social Gain
Entrepreneurship brought Jaden Evans and Benicio Baeza together, they said. The two juniors at Truman High School in Independence, Missouri, started the social media marketing company My Social Gain in early 2018 after realizing the power of social media for companies. Though the company is only a few months old, My Social Gain already has…
‘We’re a big damn deal!’ KC is an underground fintech hub, says Zach Pettet
Editor’s note: Zach Pettet is the Fintech Strategist at nbkc bank, with which Startland News has partnered on an upcoming Innovation Exchange event. Opinions expressed in this commentary are the author’s alone. Kansas City is the United States’ underground financial center. Over the years, many financial juggernauts have been born and grown up in Kansas…
Traditional marketing tactics fail to wow consumers, Boomn startup says
If an idea doesn’t prompt a “Heck yeah!” response from the team at Boomn, it gets an “Um, no” verdict, said Ryan O’Connell. A data-driven and performance-based digital marketing company, KC-based Boomn works primarily with ecommerce brands. Such clients range from food and beverage companies to TV and YouTube personalities, said O’Connell, Boomn’s chief operating…