LATAM’s Loft Snags $175M To Improve Digital Real Estate Sales

Latin America-based Loft, a digital real estate startup that aims to make buying and selling real estate in the region easier, has raised $175 million in a series C funding round, according to a press release.

The round was led by Vulcan Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, with QED Investors, Fifth Wall Ventures, Thrive Capital, Valor Capital, Monashees and others participating.

The residential real estate market in the country is worth about $6 trillion, according to the release, but there are problems in the space, like a lacking clarity of real data and a marketplace that’s consolidated, which creates a number of lower-quality and repetitive listings. Buyers, sellers and brokers also have to deal with long sell times and exorbitant asking prices.

“We’re aiming to reinvent the way people move homes by building the most consumer-focused real estate marketplace,” said Mate Pencz, Loft founder and co-CEO. “Our latest round of funding, which includes several previous investors and new ones, shows that global growth investors recognize the massive market opportunity in residential real estate across emerging markets and are confident in the long-term viability and scalability of our tech-enabled platform to power real estate transactions efficiently.”

Loft was founded by executives with experience in the real estate field and entrepreneurs, which include Co-CEOs Pencz and Florian Hagenbuch. The company improves real estate transactions by using an organized digital platform that provides data and efficiency. It combines transaction data with Loft’s machine learning technology, and it prices apartments at the unit level, which helps to increase liquidity and provide a more transparent process for sellers and buyers.

“Loft’s exponential growth over the past year makes it clear that there is a massive need in the real estate industry for more transparency and efficiency,” said Alex Rampell, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. “We see Loft’s technology-enabled approach as a significant investment opportunity, particularly in rapidly-growing emerging markets like Latin America, and we’re thrilled to be expanding our funding to help bring the company’s innovative platform to more markets across the region.”