RealCrowd's Crowdfunding
Palo Alto's RealCrowd is growing in the real estate crowdfunding space, even surpassing some of the big dogs. The online syndication company for institutional-quality real estate says its property values are higher ($24M on average per offering, which beats Realty Mogul) and it's got the most active marketplace ($218M fully capitalized value of offerings, more than Realty Mogul and Fundrise combined), according to RealCrowd CEO Adam Hooper who spoke at Bisnow's Creative Office & Tech event this week at Hotel Nikko. The company has tripled to 17 employees in a year, and he says part of the startup's success is its culture; employees love their smoked meat Fridays, which entail smoking brisket in the back of their office. Offsite paintball is also a hit. One challenge is planning a space around different departments (engineers tend to be quieter, and sales can be a loud crowd).