Days out of Y Combinator, enterprise capitalists valued ZeroDown, a monetary and actual property know-how startup, at $150 million. The firm had the proper match of skilled founders and eye-popping ambitions to carve a brand new path to residence possession.
“I think we will be known as a company that makes it easier to buy a home in every single aspect,” ZeroDown co-founder and chief govt officer Abhijeet Dwivedi tells TechCrunch.
The startup, which has raised $30 million in complete fairness funding and greater than $110 million in debt financing to assist Bay Area residents make down funds on properties, now plans to tackle Zillow and Redfin with its new residence search engine.
The enterprise, based by former Zenefits chief working officer Dwivedi, Laks Srini, Zenefits’ former chief know-how officer, and Hari Viswanathan, a former Zenefits employees engineer, was based final 12 months and rapidly landed backing from Sam Altman, adopted by client know-how enterprise capital fund Goodwater Capital. Targeting these within the Bay Area, the place prices of residence possession are amongst the best within the nation, ZeroDown costs $10,000 to buy your house outright and entrance your complete down fee.
That is, nonetheless, if your house is priced between roughly $550,000 and $1,750,000 and you’ve got a person or mixed wage of greater than $200,000, inventory choices and a few cash put away (or some variation of this). If you meet these standards, ZeroDown will buy your house and lease it to you. The objective is to get rid of one of many largest ache factors of home-buying, the down fee, and facilitate extra actual property purchases.
The firm says it intends to increase the service outdoors the higher San Francisco space to cities like Denver, Seattle and Austin, however given the $10,000 price ticket and huge inhabitants of rich tech employees within the Bay, the enterprise may flourish on this space with out increasing.
With the launch of its residence search engine, Dwivedi says customers will be capable to find out about extra than simply the sq. footage of a house. The software tells customers whether or not a possible residence is of course lit, if it has a big yard, if it has an honest commute to your work and to numerous colleges and, most significantly, whether or not it’s canine pleasant.
ZeroDown has additionally partnered with a variety of San Francisco-based tech firms, together with Pinterest, Postmates and Square, to offer their workers a rebate in the event that they select to buy a house utilizing ZeroDown.
“We know first-hand what companies need to support a great quality of life and keep their employees in the Bay Area,” Dwivedi mentioned. “A part of that is loving where you live — feeling part of a local community.”
