Real estate brokerage startup raises another $40M to boost innovation

REX raises another $40 million in a self-proclaimed "C1" round.

Austin-based licensed residential real estate brokerage that uses artificial intelligence and big data, REX, has raised an additional $40 million in what the company is calling a "C1" funding round.

The financing, an add-on from its $45 million Series C in January, brings the startup’s total raised since its inception in late 2015 to $115 million, according to Crunchbase data.

A group of private investors including Sun Microsystems Co-Founder and former CEO Scott McNealy; Richard “Dick” Schulze, Founder of Best Buy; Gordon Segal, Founder of Crate and Barrel; Amit Singhal, former SVP of Search at Google, among others, contributed to that round. It is not clear if they all participated in the “C1” round as well.

REX, which relocated from California to Austin earlier this year, currently operates in 23 cities in 17 states. Its mission, which matches that of a slew of other startups focused on disrupting the real estate industry, is to “take the stress and confusion out of buying and selling homes.”

How It Works

There are so many real estate tech startups these days that it can be difficult to differentiate them. Similar to Redfin, REX charges a lower commission (2 percent) than most traditional real estate brokerages, which typically charge 6 percent.

Using data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence, the startup claims to be able “to price homes more accurately than traditional brokerages.” It also pays its agents a salary, as opposed to working with them as contractors.

Read more here

Join us February 26-27 for the Property Portal Watch Conference Bangkok 2020.