Ukraine-founded real estate startup Propertymate that works in the United States has raised $1 million from Ukrainian investment firm Pragmatech Ventures, bringing funding to a total of $1.12 million, the companies announced on Jan. 28.
Propertymate is an online platform that allows construction companies, real estate agents and potential buyers to reach agreements for a property while a construction firm is still building it.
The startup currently works in Austin, Texas, but using the investment money, the startup plans to start operating in Dallas and Houston also.
In an interview with the Kyiv Post earlier in August, Propertymate’s founders Sofia Vyshnevska and Bohdan Hnatkovsky said that the southwest is the most profitable region in the U.S. for their business because of the fast pace of construction.
The cofounders said that last year the demand for their service has soared in the U.S. Despite the pandemic, the country’s housing market was booming: the citizens bought 5.6 million houses last year — the highest level since 2006. Experts predict that the growth will continue in 2021.
Before the pandemic, Propertymate connected real estate agents with construction companies, but some construction firms wanted to work with buyers directly too, so the startup changed its focus.
“It was one of the most successful pivots of Propertymate,” Vyshnevska said.
The number of real estate developers that use Propertymate has skyrocketed since last March, she said. Among them, there are big construction firms like Lennar, D.R. Horton, Taylor Morrison, and Pulte Homes.
Construction companies use Propertymate because it helps them to save money. The startup charges a 3% commission for every closed transaction.
Buyers can use the platform to get access to all information about new constructions, which is typically not available on the market. To find a house via Propertymate buyers have to fill in a short quiz. The platform uses artificial intelligence to predict which homes and communities suit customers best.
Real estate agents can look through properties listed on the platform to find those that may potentially match their clients’ needs. Propertymate works with the biggest U.S. real estate agents, including Keller Williams, eXp Realty, and Compass.
The startup makes the conservative U.S. real estate market more accessible and efficient, according to Yevhen Sergeev, the founder and general partner of Pragmatech Ventures, the firm that’s just invested $1 million in the startup.
Unlike in Ukraine, it’s forbidden to start selling property in the U.S. while a construction firm is still building it. It takes months for the local construction firms to sell newly-built apartments. Besides, they spend nearly $30 billion every year on advertising to sell real estate as quickly as possible.
With Propertymate the construction firms can sell quicker and easier, the founders said. Their goal is to become the biggest channel for real estate sales.
To do that, it has to compete with big U.S. marketplaces for real estate like Opcity, Homelight, New Home Source, Buzz Buzz Home.
Propertymate’s team of 17 people works from Austin. Before that, most of its staff was based in Lviv, a Ukrainian city 500 kilometers west of Kyiv.
