Fintech startup provides an app with data, tools, and funding for real estate entrepreneurs
Backflip, a real estate and fintech startup improving how entrepreneurs invest in residential properties, announces an $8 million equity seed round co-led by Vertical Venture Partners (VVP) and LiveOak Venture Partners (LiveOak) with participation from Revel Partners, Great Oaks VC, and Greg Waldorf, former founding investor and Board Member at Trulia and Zillow. The funds will be used to expand Backflip’s product development team and accelerate its 2022 public launch in Texas and Colorado. Additionally, the company secured $27 million of dedicated debt funding.
“We have a major housing problem. It won’t be solved by Government-led top-down approaches, or by large corporations like Blackstone, Lennar, and Opendoor”
Backflip helps solve America’s undeniable housing shortage and catalyzes the much-needed rejuvenation of aging homes. Over 60 million houses (75% of all homes) were built over 30 years ago and require creative updating to meet the ever-changing needs of modern Americans. Backflip’s founders believe local entrepreneurs, rather than Wall Street institutions, are best positioned to restore and modernize neighborhoods in a way that maintains their charm and authenticity.
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Backflip is building an end-to-end platform that up-levels individual real estate investors with purpose-built technology and capital products to source, analyze and finance residential real estate investments. Backflip’s app includes property insights, data, education, and community, paired with innovative capital solutions that are more flexible and faster than banks, and more desirable than private capital or hard money.
“We have a major housing problem. It won’t be solved by Government-led top-down approaches, or by large corporations like Blackstone, Lennar, and Opendoor,” said Josh Ernst, founder and CEO of Backflip. “Instead, following the Shopify platform model, we need to let entrepreneurs do what they do best – be creators. Backflip helps them make better investment decisions along the way, and to improve outcomes while reducing risk. By partnering with VVP and LiveOak, we can accelerate the rewarding journey of raising the standards of what is possible for our members and make a positive contribution to the world: creating desirable housing.”
Since launching a private beta in 2021, Backflip’s members have used the app to analyze approximately $2 billion of investment properties. Additionally, Backflip Capital has funded tens of millions of loans for its members to acquire and renovate homes.
The company is initially operating in Dallas and Denver. However, Backflip embraces a distributed workplace model and has employees spanning from New York to Napa, CA. “We are hyper-focused on attracting top-tier talent motivated by our mission, regardless of where they choose to call home,” said Jake Rome, Backflip’s co-founder and COO.
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Krishna Srinivasan, LiveOak’s founding partner, is joining Backflip’s board of directors along with Brad Corona, Managing Director at VVP.
“LiveOak is extremely bullish on residential Fintech as evidenced by our role as the first institutional investor in leaders such as Homeward, Opcity, and OJO. As such, we recognize immense opportunity in targeting the underserved “real estate entrepreneur” segment with tools, analytics and creative capital solutions,” said Srinivasan. “Backflip with the combination of founders with tremendous domain expertise, broad technology solutions and a powerful business model is uniquely qualified to be the leader in this exciting category.”
“Real estate entrepreneurs looking to finance “fix & flip” and “rehab & rent” projects overwhelmingly rely on private capital solutions rather than conventional residential lending products. The market for private capital is enormous, yet opaque, hard to navigate, and lacking an end-to-end, digitized consumer experience. The single-family residential investment sector is ripe for Backflip’s unique offering,” added Corona.
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