Perch, an online platform for home buying and selling, announced this week that it raised $220 million in funding to fuel its plans for continued expansion.
The funding round includes $200 million in debt that was led by FirstMark Capital with help from Accomplice and Juxtapose, plus $20 million in equity.
The company – which launched early last year in San Antonio and has since expanded to Dallas-Fort Worth – is part of a rising category of companies called iBuyers, which seek to simplify the home buying and selling process by creating a completely digital transaction that puts consumers in control.
Big names like RedFin and Zillow have gotten in on the iBuyer craze by launching their own initiatives.
Other companies that operate exclusively in the iBuyer space, like Opendoor and Offerpad, have recently raised fistfuls of cash to support their impressive growth trajectories. Just last month, Opendoor raised $300 million while Offerpad announced a cash infusion that brought its total capital raise to nearly $1 billion.
Clearly, the iBuyer category is a hot item on the investor scene, but apparently, Perch doesn’t consider itself a part of the movement.
Co-Founder and CEO Court Cunningham told TechCrunch that “iBuying” – or buying a house directly from a seller in a simple, online transaction – is only part of Perch’s offering.
The company aims to take it further than that, providing closing, title and mortgage services to homebuyers it calls “dual trackers,” or those who are looking to sell their home in order to buy a new one.
Perch provides sellers an offer on their home that is valid for six months, and then helps them find a new one. Once a new property is selected, they can work with Perch to close both deals in the same day, all for a 6% fee on the home the client is selling.
“We are solving one of the biggest problems in residential real estate – the inability of homeowners to line up the sale of their old home with the purchase of their new home,” Cunningham said.
“In the year ahead, Perch will continue to delight customers by bringing the entire home purchase experience, from discovery to closing, into the modern era,” Cunningham added. “We’re thrilled that our investors share our vision for bringing a better home buying and selling experience to millions of homeowners.”
