Boston-based Placester, a real estate marketing platform, that has experienced significant growth in 2015, continued its strong year with the announcement that it raised $27 million in a Series C round of funding.
Placester’s latest round of funding more than doubles the previous investments in the company, which totaled $23 million. Placester announced a $15 million injection of funding in April.
With the latest round of funding, the total investment in Placester is now $50 million.
According to the company, which builds websites for real estate agents, Placester raised $40 million in funding and inked national franchise contracts with real estate giants Keller Williams and RE/MAX Integra.
Placester announced the partnership with Keller Williams in August. Under that agreement, Keller Williams associates and local offices have access to Placester websites that include direct integration with eEdge, the franchise’s suite of software and tools, as well as Keller Williams branding.
According to Placester, the company has grown significantly in users and employees throughout 2015.
In a statement, Placester said that one in five real estate agents in the U.S. are now using Placester's platform. And in 2015, the company's employee headcount more than doubled from 43 to 105 employees.
Placester said that it will use this latest round of funding, which includes its previous investors, New Enterprise Associates and Romulus Capital, to further build its engineering team and continue to add new features and services to the platform.
"Enterprise sales tools and marketing software have become critical to the success of any business, and before we introduced the Placester marketing platform, real estate professionals did not have access to the quality and depth of this technology in their industry," said Matt Barba, CEO, Placester.
"Placester's relentless growth comes from the real need for enterprise-level brokers and individual agents to develop deeper relationships with their customers online,” Barba continued. “With this round of funding, we're investing heavily in growing our engineering team to make our platform even better."
HousingWire has tracked Placester’s growth for years, including honoring Barba as one of HousingWire Magazine’s 2015 Rising Stars, and featuring him on the cover of the June issue.
"Placester was created because founders Matt and Frederick (Townes) recognized the enterprise opportunity to deliver real estate brokers and agents an industry-specific marketing and advertising technology," said Ravi Viswanathan, General Partner at NEA.
"Annually, $25 billion is spent on real estate marketing and advertising, yet industry professionals experience fundamental roadblocks when connecting with consumers online — where the search for a new home often begins,” Viswanathan said. “Placester's solution enables real estate professionals to effectively connect and engage with the people they serve."
