US-based Backflip, which helps investors find the right property to invest into, has netted $8m for its seed round and a $27m debt investment.
Vertical Venture Partners and LiveOak Venture Partners co-led the funding round, with contributions also coming from Revel Partners, Great Oaks VC, and Greg Waldorf, former founding investor and Board Member at Trulia and Zillow.
With the capital, the company plans to expand its product development team and accelerate its 2022 public launch in Texas and Colorado.
Backflip was created to resolve the housing shortage in the US and help the rejuvenation of aging homes. It claims that more than 60 million houses (around 75% of all homes) were built over 30 years ago and need updating to meet modern needs.
The company’s founders believe “local entrepreneurs, rather than Wall Street institutions, are best positioned to restore and modernise neighbourhoods in a way that maintains their charm and authenticity.”
Backflip is building an end-to-end platform that up-levels individual real estate investors with purpose-built technology and capital products to source, analyse and finance residential real estate investments. Its app includes property insights, data, education and community. It claims it is also more flexible and faster than banks.
Its Backflip Capital division provides companies with the capital to fund investments into properties.
Since it launched its private beta in 2021, users have analysed around $2bn of investment properties. Furthermore, it has funded tens of millions of loans for its user to acquire and renovate homes.
Backflip founder and CEO Josh Ernst said, “We have a major housing problem. It won’t be solved by Government-led top-down approaches, or by large corporations like Blackstone, Lennar, and Opendoor.
“Instead, following the Shopify platform model, we need to let entrepreneurs do what they do best – be creators. Backflip helps them make better investment decisions along the way, and to improve outcomes while reducing risk. By partnering with VVP and LiveOak, we can accelerate the rewarding journey of raising the standards of what is possible for our members and make a positive contribution to the world: creating desirable housing.”
As part of the deal, LiveOak founding partner Krishna Srinivasan and VVP managing director Brad Corona will join the Backflip board of directors.
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