Some of the JetClosing team. (Photo via JetClosing)
Daniel Greenshields sees a tipping point in real estate. Homebuyers, particularly digital natives, are demanding transparency more than ever. Realtors want more speed and efficiency, powered by technology.
JetClosing CEO Dan Greenshields. (Photo via JetClosing)
It’s why his company, JetClosing, is seeing early traction with its cloud-based home closing service and just reeled in another $20 million from investors.
The Series A round was led by T. Rowe Price, with participation from PSL Ventures, Imagen Capital Partners, and existing investors Trilogy Equity partners and Maveron. Total funding is now north of $25 million.
Founded in 2016 and spun out of Pioneer Square Labs in Seattle, JetClosing digitizes the home closing process for buyers, sellers, and realtors, removing paper forms and bringing everything to the cloud. The company charges a flat escrow fee of $500 to both sides for each transaction and makes additional revenue on issuing owners and lenders title insurance policies.
JetClosing is now licensed to operate in Washington, Arizona, Nevada, and Colorado. Greenshields, the company’s CEO, said business has “exploded” in recent months as the startup expands to more metro areas. It is processing 100 transactions per month; each produces about $3,000 in revenue.
Greenshields pointed to new tech-fueled real estate services like Opendoor and FlyHomes that speed up the home-buying experience. Giants like Redfin and Zillow are also now offering customers a way to quickly buy or sell a home.
JetClosing fits into this trend, applying machine learning, serverless computing, and other technology to the closing process. Its competitors — incumbent title and escrow services — can do the same job, but JetClosing does it faster, cheaper, on mobile, and with more transparency, Greenshields said.
“We do the same job — just better,” the CEO added.
JetClosing gives real estate agents a way to provide real-time notifications and messaging to homebuyers about the progress of a close. It can deliver seller proceeds in 60 minutes. The company also offers its own property title scoring system called JetScore, similar to a FICO score for credit services.
Greenshields said that making the home buying process faster will ultimately be good for the real estate market as it adds more liquidity and velocity.
“It will increase transactions,” he said.
The company’s largest competitors are firms like Rainier Title and Chicago Title, which is owned by Fidelity and has 50 percent market share, according to Greenshields.
Greenshields previously spent nearly 15 years helping run ShareBuilder, a company now owned by Capital One which digitized and sped up the process of buying stocks, bonds, mutual funds, 401(K) plans, and more.
T. Rowe Price, which led the round, also recently led a $125 million round for Seattle-based pet care company Rover. It has backed other Seattle-area companies like OfferUp and Apptio.
JetClosing employs 34 people and expects to reach 100 employees by the end of this year.
JetClosing was one of the first spinouts of Pioneer Square Labs, a Seattle-based startup studio that recently raised its own venture capital fund called PSL Ventures, which invested in this round. It has spun out five other startups since 2015:
- LumaTax, a company that aims to automate sales tax reporting for small businesses.
- AdLightning, which helps digital publishing outlets scan their sites for disruptive ads.
- Boundless, a startup that aims to help people navigate the U.S. immigration process.
- Taunt, a platform that lets esports fans compete against each other.
- TraceMe, an app that helps connect celebrities with “superfans.”
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