Mortgage startup Accept.inc raised $90m in debt and equity led by venture capitalist firm Signal Fire as well as existing seed investors Y Combinator and DN Capital.
Accept.inc plans to use the funding to scale its platform, double its team size and enter new markets. This growth is all in service of Accept.inc’s mission “to accelerate access to homeownership by enabling an all-cash offer on every home,” it said.
The firm describes itself as an iLender that gives people a way to submit all-cash offers on a home upon qualifying for a mortgage. Accept.inc provides cash to buyers so they can submit a competitive offer or buy a new property prior to selling their existing home.
If a homebuyer can’t close on their mortgage in time to buy the home they want, instead of losing out on the house, Accept.inc will buy the property with its own funds and reserve the home on their behalf. As of right now, Accept.inc only operates these services in Colorado.
The process requires a pre-approval that once passed allow buyers to submit an all-cash offer with Accept.inc’s proof-of-funds. If the all-cash offer wins, the home is purchased from the seller and reserved until the loan is ready to close. The home is then sold back to the buyer at the same price that it was purchased for. The all-cash contract signed between Accept.inc and the seller is still contingent on a satisfactory inspection that can be negotiated between the buyer and agent.
Commenting on the funding, CEO & co-founder of the Denver-based startup Adam Pollack said, “The pandemic has fundamentally changed the meaning and importance of ‘home.’
“Yet the current system dramatically favours wealthy individuals and investors who can offer sellers the speed and certainty of a cash offer. Accept.inc has built a cash offer product for anyone who qualifies for a mortgage, ensuring no one is locked out of the best homes, school districts, or neighbourhoods just because they don’t have hundreds of thousands in their bank account to make a cash offer.”
Since its inception in 2016, Accept.inc has seen 1,000% growth in demand and “helped thousands of buyers, agents and sellers close on hundreds of millions of dollars in homes.” The company saw ”14x” growth in 2020 and from June 2020 to June 2021, it achieved “10x” growth in terms of the size of its team and number of transactions and revenue.
The firm competes with Opendoor, an iBuyer which buys a new home on behalf of customers, charging a 0.02% daily fee after the first 120 days it holds the property. Accept.inc claims its services come with no additional costs or markups beyond the fees of a traditional mortgage offer.
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