Proptech Startup Shuts Down One Year After Raising $100M, Citing Market Conditions
Reali, a California-based real estate and financial technology platform, plans to cease operations and lay off most of its employees by Sept. 9.
The company, in a press release this week, attributed the shutdown to the current challenges in the real estate and financial markets and the unfavorable capital-raising environment.
The shutdown comes just one year after Reali raised its $100M, Series B round led by Zeev Ventures in August 2021, TechCrunch reported. The company has raised more than $290M in debt and equity funding since its 2016 founding, according to CrunchBase.
Reali employed 140 people, according to a report from CTECH by Catalyst. A small team of employees will still support active real estate transactions through the end of the year, Reali's press release said.
Reali was co-founded by Amit Haller and Ami Avrahami in Israel in 2016. The duo wanted to create a transparent real estate buying and selling process. The startup aimed to help customers buy and sell in one transaction. The company operates in six regions of California including the San Francisco Bay area and the Inland Empire.
"We had an incredible six-year run delighting homeowners," Reali CEO Tyler Baldwin said. "We want to extend our deepest gratitude to the thousands of homeowners who trusted Reali with their homeownership journeys, the Reali team, our investors, and those who rooted for us from the sidelines. It has been a pleasure to serve our communities."
Proptech companies across the country have struggled to raise money this year, as Bisnow previously reported, with one venture capital executive calling this year's funding market "virtually unrecognizable." Experts said in June that if the market doesn't improve soon, more companies will run out of money and could be forced to shut down.
The VC funding market woes came after proptech stocks fell dramatically, with public proptech companies from January to June losing an average of 30% of their value, 7% worse than the Nasdaq index, according to Crain’s New York Business.
Better.com, a digital mortgage lender, is conducting its fourth round of layoffs since December, TechCrunch reported Thursday. The company has already laid off thousands of employees. It says that has been triggered by increased mortgage rates, which have forced the company to adjust to market dynamics.
