PeerStreet, an online marketplace for real estate-backed loans, announced this week that it raised $60 million in its Series C funding round.
The 2019 HW Tech100 winner’s round was led by Colchis Capital, a San Francisco-based private credit investment management firm. The firm is no stranger to investing in PeerStreet. Other returning investors included Andreessen Horowitz, World Innovation Lab and Thomvest Ventures.
“We’ve been a strategic partner of PeerStreet for years as an investor in the company and in loans on the marketplace. Leading this round was a natural next step for us,” said Ted Conrads, co-founder and president at Colchis Capital. “We’re excited to be a part of their growth as they continue to innovate as the market leader.”
According to PeerStreet, the latest round of funding will help the company “continue to hire top talent and scale PeerStreet’s two-sided marketplace.”
Beyond the newly added $60 million in funding, PeerStreet also announced that it secured $4.25 billion in new capital commitments from institutions to purchase loans through PeerStreet’s proprietary platform.
“2019 has been an incredible year of growth for PeerStreet, and this funding round will accelerate that growth,” said Brew Johnson, PeerStreet’s CEO and co-founder. “The injection of equity capital into our business via the Series C, combined with strong demand from loan buyers, means we will continue to provide value for lenders, end borrowers, and investors for years to come.”
While the company has grown in 2019, PeerStreet has been on this track for some time now. HousingWire reported in 2018 that PeerStreet funded over $900 million in loan volume at the time and more than doubled its loan volume from 2016 to 2017.
And with a growing platform based on investing in real estate-backed loans, PeerStreet’s co-founder is acutely aware of the inventory issues facing the country.
“I think our society is at a crossroads—there is a shortage of housing in many areas of the country and nearly 40 percent of existing homes were built before 1970. We can either build more homes and continue to take over green spaces, or we can up-cycle the existing aging and dilapidated housing stock,” said Brett Crosby, PeerStreet’s COO and co-founder. “PeerStreet’s business model ultimately supports real estate entrepreneurs doing the latter, curing the capital constraints that have held them back and allowing them to reinvest in American communities.”
