Formation 8 is a venture capital firm that provides financial and strategic capital to early growth smart enterprise and energy technology companies. They support entrepreneurs who seek to transform the most important global industries by solving hard problems with technology solutions. Partnership is in their DNA. Formation 8 value trusted relationships with entrepreneurs, investors, and strategic partners through their global network.  As a partner to young companies, Formation 8's goal is to create long-term, sustainable value through operational expertise and business development partnerships. Formation 8 leverage their deep and distributed networks to provide the market knowledge, deployment expertise, sales channels, and relationships needed to expand into and thrive in Asia. With local teams in Korea, China and Singapore, Formation 8 connect Silicon Valley start-ups to dynamic multinational corporations in these geographies.

Formation 8

LeFrak is a preeminent, family-owned property company committed to community development and long-term ownership. Its investments are geographically diverse and span many business sectors. It has significant investments in securities, private businesses, and energy.

LeFrak

Menlo Ventures provides capital for multi-stage consumer, enterprise, and life sciences technology companies. Since 1976, the firm’s market-driven analysis has led to the identification of opportunities and successful investments in innovative markets. Notable areas of investment include Marketplaces (Uber, Rover.com, Poshmark); Consumer Services (Tumblr, Betterment, Roku, Siri); Dev/Ops (Harness, Edge Delta, Fire hydrant); SaaS (Carta, ScoutRFP, Qualia, Benchling, Everlaw); Fintech (Betterment, Bluevine, Chime); Cybersecurity (Cavium, IronPort, BitSight, Abnormal, StackRox); and Life Sciences Technology (Synthego, Cofactor Genomics, Recursion Pharmaceuticals, 3T Biosciences). Menlo’s portfolio includes more than 70 public companies, and more than 100 mergers and acquisitions, with $5 billion under management. The firm is currently investing in Menlo Ventures XV, a $500 million early-stage fund, as well as its $500 million Inflection Fund, which targets early-growth investments.

Menlo Ventures

8VC enables industry transformation. In a wave of creative destruction, they believe emerging platforms will replace the decades-old technology infrastructure behind many industries, promoting greater innovation and prosperity.

Clocktower Technology Ventures invests in the insurance, payments, personal finance, lending, credit, and asset management sectors. The firm’s expertise investing across financial services and its related ecosystem of global institutional allocators, policymakers, and hedge fund managers have created a community that offers a distinct value-add to portfolio companies. Since launching, Clocktower Technology Ventures has invested in 96 fintech companies in North America, Europe, and Latin America. It was founded in 2015 and headquartered in Santa Monica, California.

Clocktower Technology Ventures

Bienville is an investment advisory and asset management business managing capital on behalf of family offices and top performing institutional investors. We invest across public and private markets, crypto and venture capital, and through our partnership with Fractal we launch around 25 SaaS companies per year.

Bienville Capital

Human Capital is a venture firm for builders. We believe ambitious builders turn great ideas into great companies. We invest in founders, teams, and startups that share this mindset. In the last 6 years, that mantra has led us to invest in 15 companies before they became unicorns, including Snowflake, Anduril, Livongo, and Brex (where we wrote the first check). We have over $1.3B in total capital committed and we've built a community of over 5,000 incredible, driven, ambitious builders.

Human Capital

Jaws Ventures provides growth capital to companies with a focus on those operating in the consumer & technology sectors.

Jaws Ventures

Leblon Capital

Founded in 2001, Tiger Global Management, LLC (“Tiger Global”) is a New York-based investment firm pursuing a long-term approach to investing in leading, global public and private companies that leverage technological innovation. Tiger Global’s public equity business includes fundamentally oriented long/short, long-focused and crossover strategies, targeting investments in high-quality, public growth companies. The private equity business invests in early through late stage companies that pursue innovative approaches to new and existing industries, building on over 20 years of experience investing in hundreds of businesses in more than 30 countries with more than 90 portfolio company IPOs. With a strong track record investing across sectors and stages, Tiger Global aims to be a thought partner to companies and their management teams across their lifecycle in public and private markets. The Firm’s mission is to generate world-class returns for its investors and to do so in a way that makes its employees, partners and portfolio companies proud.

Tiger Global Management

9Yards Capital provides entrepreneurs with long-term, strategic capital and have a deep understanding of how governments and regulators operate. They take a focused approach to the industries they invest in and have a proven track record in financial services and logistics investing.

9Yards Capital

Qualia

Qualia is the leading real estate digital closing platform used by over half a million real estate and mortgage professionals. Qualia's cloud-based closing rooms provide the complete infrastructure to streamline the home closing and refinance experience for real estate and mortgage businesses and their clients. The company offers a suite of products that brings together homebuyers and sellers, mortgage lenders, title & escrow agents, and real estate agents onto one secure, remote platform. Since launching in 2015, the company has been named an ALTA Elite Provider, CB Insights Fintech 250, grown to over 500 employees, and has been recognized by Forbes as a Best Startup Employer. The company is a leader in industry security and was the first technology company to join the Coalition to Stop Real Estate Wire Fraud. Qualia is headquartered in San Francisco, CA and has offices in Austin, TX, and Superior, CO.

Qualia is a comprehensive digital closing platform for the real estate and mortgages industries. It is mostly used by real estate agents, settlement agents, lenders, title insurers, and home buyers and sellers in the US. The company offers a variety of products including a title and escrow platform, remote online notarization, closing services, mortgage lender platform, secure closing portal and E-Remittances.

Property owners and real estate companies are able to handle larger portfolios while offering faster and cheaper services.

Residential PropTech

Encore Bank Partners with Qualia to Streamline Real Estate Closing Services

Qualia is a comprehensive digital closing platform for the real estate and mortgages industries. It is mostly used by real estate agents, settlement agents, lenders, title insurers, and home buyers and sellers in the US. The company offers a variety of products including a title and escrow platform, remote online notarization, closing services, mortgage lender platform, secure closing portal and E-Remittances.In October 2023, it launched Qualia Shield, a funding and disbursement product for title and escrow companies. The product aimed to simplify accounting processes and protect businesses against fraud. Available to Qualia Atlas and Qualia Connect customers (with a wider release in 2024) Qualia Shield offered features like earnest money deposit collection, automated wire matching, wire fraud detection, and seller ID verification. Qualia stated that the product addressed the growing wire fraud issue in real estate by providing a secure, integrated solution for wire instructions, fraud risk assessment, and identity verification.Furthermore, in July 2024, Qualia introduced new security features for its wire fraud detection tool. The updates included identity verification through mobile ID scanning and facial geometry analysis, a risk assessment of bank details, and enhanced buyer education. These tools, integrated within Qualia's title production software, were designed to help title and escrow professionals combat wire fraud more effectively.

Houzz is a platform connecting homeowners with vendors such as home improvement professionals, interior designers, and others. The platform gives opportunities to home improvement professionals to showcase their work and provide contact information so they can be reached by homeowners in need of such services. Over time, the company has also established an e-commerce marketplace for selling goods, such as furniture and others.&nbsp;In July 2024, the company upgraded its Houzz Pro 3D Floor Plan Tool to include multi-floor capabilities, allowing professionals to design and visualize multi-story buildings within the platform. This enhancement, part of the Houzz Pro suite, aimed to improve collaboration and communication between professionals and clients by offering a more comprehensive view of entire homes or multi-level commercial spaces. It also introduced AutoMate, a set of AI-powered tools integrated into Houzz Pro, designed to enhance efficiency for building, remodeling, and design professionals. Utilizing Houzz Vision AI technologies and GenAI models, AutoMate aimed to streamline workflows and improve productivity within the home improvement industry. Pricing details for this new feature were not disclosed.The company’s core business is to offer subscription plans to contractors and designers so they can list their services. The company offers its subscription in three different tiers: Starter, Essential, and Pro, priced at USD 85, USD 129, and USD 199 per month, respectively, excluding its Advertising package which costs USD 499 per month.Houzz was impacted negatively by the Covid-19 pandemic and had to lay off 155 employees (10% of the total) in April 2020. However, that was not the first layoff as it also let go of around 180 employees in January 2019 when the company stated that it was preparing for its IPO. The IPO is expected to be finalized in early 2022.In December 2021, Houzz acquired an Australian-based SaaS platform providing home construction planning and professional estimation tools through ConX. ConX’s tools were to be built into the end-to-end Houzz Pro offering to serve construction contractors better through the Houzz platform. It, therefore, allowed users of the Houzz platform to streamline the estimation process and efficiently manage workflow when undertaking home improvement projects.&nbsp;Key customers and partnershipsThe company had over 65 million monthly as of August 2022.In July 2024, the company partnered with GreenSky, a financial technology company, to provide home improvement financing options. The partnership integrated GreenSky's home improvement loans into Houzz Pro's business and marketing management software. This collaboration aimed to empower builders and remodelers by providing them access to financing options, potentially helping them close more business deals.

Houzz

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 DocuSign offers eSignature tools to facilitate the management of electronic agreements. These tools enable users to upload and send documents that require signatures, with other features such as checking the status, sending reminders, and storing documents online. The company offers its services to many sectors, including real estate, healthcare and insurance.&nbsp;
 
 
 For the real estate sector, DocuSign automates many transaction processes by providing electronic signing of documents, online notarizations, and a&nbsp; collaboration workspace for the relevant parties (buyers, sellers, agents, etc.). DocuSign claims it helps the property sector reduce paper costs and speeds up the process, while reporting that around 82% of documents sent through its platform get signed within a day.&nbsp;
 
 
 DocuSign has a specific plan for real estate purposes. The plan comes in three different tiers: Real Estate Starter, Real Estate, and Realtors, priced at USD 15, USD 45, and USD 35 per month, respectively.
 
 
 In May 2024, DocuSign 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/29171">
 announced its agreement to acquire
 </a>
 Lexion, a contract management platform, for USD 165 million in cash, subject to customary adjustments. Through this acquisition, DocuSign planned to leverage Lexion&rsquo;s AI-based contract management technology and expertise to strengthen its position in the Intelligent Agreement Management (IAM) space and enhance DocuSign&rsquo;s IAM platform capabilities.
 
 
 DocuSign went public in 2018 and was valued at around USD 4.4 billion at the time of its listing.
 
 
 For FY2024, DocuSign reported total revenue of USD 2.8 billion (up 10% YoY), compared to a total revenue of USD 2.5 billion recorded for FY2023. The company reported a non-GAAP net income of USD 622.9 million for FY2023, compared to a non-GAAP net income of USD 418.9 million recorded a year ago.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 As of January 2024, the company had over 1 billion worldwide users since 2003 and over 1.5 million paying customers.
 
</div>

DocuSign

HomeLight initially started as an agent matching platform for home buyers and sellers, but has expanded its product portfolio to provide title and escrow, home estimation, home loans, and other services.For the agent matching service, buyers and sellers answer online questionnaires to determine their specific needs. The platform then uses an algorithm to crunch historical transaction data to find the most suitable agents in its database, which included over 30,000 agents as of July 2024. The platform typically lists up to three agents for buyers/sellers to select from and offers a consultation service to refine the selection further and ensure clients get the most suitable agents.HomeLight also provides a trade-in service, where it will guarantee to pay a certain price for the client’s current home. This way, clients do not need to worry about home sale contingency (a new home transaction is contingent on the sale of an existing home) when they want to purchase a new home. In addition, clients will get additional cash (less any selling-related costs and trade-in fees) if HomeLight can sell their old homes in the market for more than the guaranteed prices (i.e., clients can get the full market value).The platform is available for free to buyers and sellers, but the agent matching service charges a standard referral fee of 25% to the gross commission of agents when they get selected. The platform stated that its recommendations are transparent and based solely on the agents’ performance metrics. In August 2020, HomeLight acquired a transaction management tool, Disclosures.io, that enables real estate professionals to manage transactions as well as market and sell homes in one place. In June 2022, HomeLight acquired Accept, a property financing platform, for an undisclosed amount. Through the acquisition, HomeLight leveraged Accept’s tech-based mortgage solution to offer clients a contingency-free transaction and provide homebuyers with pre-qualified mortgages to facilitate cash offers.The company expected its revenue to exceed USD 300 million in 2021, triple that of 2020. HomeLight’s Cash Offer, the service that allows homebuyers to make upfront cash offers through its certified agents, grew by 500% YoY in transaction volume and achieved USD 3 billion in combined referred transaction value with Accept.Inc in Q1 2022.Key customers and partnershipsAs of September 2021, the company had served over one million customers.

HomeLight

<div>
 
 Porch operates a home services platform. In the business-to-consumer (B2C) segment, Porch provides an online marketplace that connects homeowners with home improvement professionals (e.g. appliance repair, electricians, plumbers, etc.). The company states that it works with two out of every three homebuyers in the US every month. The company also offers home moving and handyman services, as well as home and auto insurance. It&nbsp;
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/25523">
 launched RynohVerifi
 </a>
 , a fraud warning tool aimed to offer fraud protection for title and escrow companies in January 2024.
 
 
 In the business-to-business (B2B) segment, the company provides home inspection software and home moving software for home service companies. Porch has formed partnerships with many leading companies across a number of verticals, including real estate companies, home inspection companies, retail companies, home warranty companies, and others.
 
 
 Although the company&rsquo;s core focus has been home improvement and repair services, Porch has also made notable acquisitions to branch out into new segments. In January 2021, the company acquired Homeowners of America (home insurance provider) for USD 100 million, V12 Data (omnichannel marketing data solution provider) for USD 22 million, and Palm-Tech (home-inspection software company) and iRoofing (roofing app for contractors) for undisclosed amounts.
 
 
 In July 2020, Porch announced a merger with a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC), PropTech Acquisition Corporation, through which the company would go public. The merger was finalized in December 2020, and the company began trading on Nasdaq under the ticker &lsquo;PRCH&rsquo;, raising a total of more than USD 322 million at a valuation of over USD 1 billion.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 For FY2023, Porch reported 56% YoY growth in total revenue to USD 430.3 million, compared to USD 275.9 million recorded in FY2022. Adjusted EBITDA loss for FY2023 amounted to USD 44.5 million (translating to an adjusted EBITDA margin of -10%), compared to an adjusted EBITDA loss of USD 49.6 million recorded a year ago (translating to an adjusted EBITDA margin of -18%).
 
</div>

Porch

​​Mynd operates a platform for individual investors (i.e individual landlords) of Single Family Rental (SFR) properties that provides full-service property management (mostly to individual owners) using digital leasing with 3D tours, self-showings, tenant screening, tenant and owner portals, financial reporting, electronic rent collection, repairs and maintenance, a dedicated portfolio manager, and 24/7 emergency support.The company claims the platform has reduced leasing times and generated high-quality tenants with low delinquency for its users. One advantage of using Mynd is that the company provides a guarantee of up to USD 5,000 when 1) tenants fail to pay rent, 2) damage to the properties beyond the normal wear and tear, and 3) tenants cannot pay and get evicted. The company has different subscription fees for various cities. The company’s pricing for its full service without guarantees ranges from USD 69 - 99 per month, while its prices range between USD 99 - 199 per month with the inclusion of guarantees.As of August 2024, the company managed over 18,000 homes and USD 6 billion worth of assets under management, spanning over 27 markets across Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington.In June 2024, Mynd <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/30124">merged with</a> <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/354173">Roofstock</a>, a real estate investment platform focused on SFRs, to offer users integrated property investment and management offerings. Through this merger, Mynd planned to provide real estate investors with an integrated investment and rental management platform, offer analytical insights on SFRs, and support buying and selling decisions.

Mynd

Tools for automating property lease management workflow processes. Some startups handle the entire leasing process while others only handle part of the process (e.g., rent collection). Leasing tools for agents are included here.

These tools automate the property appraisal process. Appraisals are generally required by lenders before originating mortgages to buyers.

Tools for title and escrow, as well as transaction management;
1) Title and Escrow: These platforms provide settlement and closing services. They cover a variety of tools, such as, title search and examination, automated generation of closing disclosure, online notarization, automated fund disbursements using electronic cheques, etc. 
2) Transaction Management: These platforms generally enable various users (agents, buyers, sellers) to manage real estate transactions more efficiently. They bring all users and tools together onto a single platform to complete tasks like electronic signatures, seller disclosure forms, etc.

These tools essentially help agents in buying and selling activities, such as generating and managing leads, getting referrals, and searching for suitable homes for clients.

These platforms handle activities related to home maintenance and improvements. They either provide the services themselves or simply connect clients to vendors.

Companies that offer tools that allow renters or buyers to view homes without visiting the sites.

Companies that offer an online platform to match buyers and sellers of residential real estate properties.

Allows real estate agents to create 3D virtual tours for properties

Uses AI/ML to support property related tasks such as rental payments and spatial data capturing

Uses GenAI to help customers navigate listings, enhance marketing content, and automate communications

Transaction closing tools that use the blockchain to facilitate title and escrow services

Qualia

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