Recently, investors funneled millions of dollars into two pieces of real estate tech aimed at the $47 trillion real estate industry. In December, Audience Town, a vertical advertising platform, received fresh capital to improve its real estate advertising reach. This week, Second City Ventures, the venture capital arm of the National Association of Realtors, invested in Updater, a soup-to-nuts digital moving assistant.
The Ultimate in Real Estate Tech: a Digital Moving Assistant
Think of Updater as a digital concierge of sorts. Even its tagline aims to keep things simple. “You’re moving. Don’t freak out.” So in order to keep customers from freaking out, Updater helps them set up utilities, arrange for cable and internet, and forward mail. Updater also offers discounts for moving-related services, promising to save users hundreds of dollars and hours of footwork. No word on whether it wraps your glassware for you, but give it time.
According to FinSMEs, the company intends to use the fresh influx of cash to purchase Bridgevine—another similar service offering. Second City Ventures did not disclose the amount of the investment.
Bringing Vertical Advertising to Real Estate Market
According to Business Insider, real estate advertising accounts for $30 billion annually. But for some reason, it remains relatively untapped by the tech market. So Audience Town aims to grab their piece of that pie.
Audience Town’s technology centers on programmatic advertising, a highly intricate amalgamation of automation and data science that leverages rich data sets to deliver ad messages to the most closely matched audience possible, regardless of ad channel.
The undisclosed investment comes from MathCaptial, a venture capital fund interested in digital advertising start-ups. The arrangement also brings a partnership with MediaMath. MediaMath’s deep bench will provide Audience Town with greater software and analytics capabilities. Reportedly, funds will be used to create a new user-friendly customer interface.
