[ibimage==36837==Original==none==self==ibimage_align-center]AssetAvenue co-founders David Manshoory, Kevin Arrabaca and Chris Ganan
A Los Angeles-based peer-to-peer online lending platform for commercial real estate just got a big boost.
AssetAvenue announced today it raised an $11 million Series A round. Silicon Valley-based DCM Ventures led the round, and NetEase and Matrix Partners — leaders of the startup’s $4 million seed round — contributed to this round, as well. Ron Suber, president of online consumer loans lender Prosper, and a “small handful of together strategic investors from the finance and technology community” round out the investor list, CEO David Manshoory said.
Founded in Dec. 2013, AssetAvenue enables accredited and institutional investors to contribute as little as $5,000 for bridge financing, which can range from $250,000 to $25 million per property. Also, certified investors can fund loans through AssetAvenue’s Whole Loan Program.
Manshoory said the company will use the equity-based fundraising to invest in three major areas: technology and product development, hiring, and marketing.
He said AssetAvenue has built parts of the loan funnel, but not all of it. Doing so is the task at hand.
“We want to continue to invest in the product, and the goal of AssetAvenue really is to become the fastest, most efficient, transparent lender in the country for the real estate industry,” Manshoory said. “Traditionally, a loan takes anywhere from 30-60 days to get funded by a bank or a traditional lender, and our goal is to get it down to 10 days — the entire process.”
The company has been recognized as a leading lending startup by CB Insights and was featured in our “50 LA tech startups to watch in 2015." Manshoory said more than $1.7 billion worth of loan applications came into the company since July 2014. He said thousands of accredited investors use AssetAvenue, which differs from similar services in that it is exclusively used for lending and exclusively intended for commercial real estate.
The company charges a fee to the borrower and to the investor for servicing the loan. On the borrower side, the fee is based on the loan and ranges from one to four percentage points, Manshoory said. He said the fee gets up to one percent for investors.
This is the third company Manshoory has helped build, and he said a company’s culture has always been a focal point. Evidently, the culture is one that AssetAvenue employees enjoy. Manshoory said AssetAvenue grew to 40 team members from the 20 it had at the start of the year. He said the team will likely double again in the next six to nine months and said the startup is hiring aggressively across all departments, adding that the quality of its employees is another separating factor from competitors.
“I look for people who are allergic to corporate work environments, which is the best way I like to put it,” Manshoory said of the culture. “We look for super smart, talented, down-to-earth people that want to join a really fast growing company where you’re constantly being challenged to solve real-world problems. And there couldn’t be a larger problem to solve than an industry that’s been stuck in its ways for decades.”
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