RealtyShares, which bills itself as the “leading online marketplace for real estate investing,” announced Thursday that it bought Acquire Real Estate, which the company calls an “innovative rival” that also offers a real estate investing platform.
While both companies offer crowdfunded investments in commercial and multifamily real estate, RealtyShares also offers investments in single-family residential housing for “fix and flip” and construction loans.
According to a release, each of the companies also built its business in a different way.
The release stated that RealtyShares currently has more than 120,000 registered investors and recently surpassed $500 million lent for real estate projects in nearly 1,000 deals in 39 states.
The company also just saw a record second quarter, where it tripled business over the prior year by originating almost $140 million in real estate projects.
The release from RealtyShares paints a positive picture of Acquire Real Estate, suggesting that the company “set a bar for product development within the industry” in spite of the apparent relative scarcity of funding when compared to other companies in the industry.
“Acquire focused on developing industry-first products to serve its commercial sponsors and investors, keeping the platform at the forefront of innovation despite better-funded rivals,” the release stated. “It was the first real estate marketplace to introduce a real estate exchange, investor profiles, a dynamic investment calculator and self-directed IRA investing.”
As part of the deal, Acquire Real Estate CEO Josh Klimkiewicz and Chief Technogy Officer Gerry Polucci will join RealtyShares.
Klimkiewicz will serve as director of commercial business development, while Polucci will become as a director of engineering.
“Like RealtyShares, we saw a real opportunity to use technology to close the gap and create a better process for raising capital,” Klimkiewicz said of the company he founded in 2014.
“We targeted commercial equity day one, specifically middle market projects with equity checks between $5 million and $10 million, recognizing that there was just no efficient way for institutions or investors to participate in those types of deals without innovative solutions,” Klimkiewicz continued. “By taking the time to understand our community, we were better able to address needs and build products that truly solved problems.”
RealtyShares founder and CEO Nav Athwal said that the deal will allow the company to drive real change in the industry.
“RealtyShares and Acquire share a vision that technology will make real estate investing easier and more accessible, uniting bold thinkers to set an innovative tone for the industry,” Athwal said. “Josh and Gerry are a perfect culture fit for our company. They bring the intuition, tenacity and experience we need to remove friction from the real estate investing process and help RealtyShares redefine this industry.”
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
