Acquisition, Fintech, PropTech, Real Estate

Award-Winning Fintech Rook Capital acquired by Legacy Group Capital

Bellevue, WA April 16, 2024– Legacy Group Capital announces the acquisition of Boulder-based fintech Rook Capital, creator of the Shared Value Investment™.  The acquisition will accelerate Legacy’s innovative work in serving the housing needs of “the missing middle.”

As Home Equity Investments (HEI) evolve and grow into a foundational component of the real estate market, the need to empower builders with a homebuyer-focused HEI is paramount.  Rook Capital’s award-winning platform provides the best-in-class solution for homebuyer-focused HEI’s, bringing together and aligning builders and homebuyers.

“We fell in love with Rook Capital immediately,” said Scott Rerucha, Legacy CEO.  “The innovative HEI offering, the world-class technology, and a channel led strategy were a perfect fit for Legacy, “ he added.  Rook Capital co-founder and CEO Ed Messman said, “Bringing together builders, investors, and homebuyers allows the Rook vision to scale at a pace we’d never have been able to do without Legacy’s know-how, heft, and experience.”

Housing is front and center in the news today, as interest rates climb, supply tightens, and tens of millions of American families are unable to find or afford the right house.  In addition, traditional housing finance solutions are often inflexible for families on the cusp of being able to buy a home.  Rook’s approach to HEI creates a win-win for buyers and investors while offering an innovative solution for local builders to move inventory faster and thus build more housing units.

As part of the acquisition, Rook co-founder Ed Messman will join Legacy as Chief Investment Office and co-founder Kevin Cawley will join as Chief Technology Officer.  With its recent $20 million growth capital financing and the addition of veteran real estate leaders to its senior leadership team, Legacy Group Capital is poised to accelerate its growth plan and expand into six new markets over the next 2 years.

About Legacy Group Capital

Legacy Group Capital (Legacy) is an integrated real estate company focused on community-based engagement in private lending and real estate investing.  Legacy empowers homebuilders, real estate investors, homeowners, and homebuyers with a flexible lending and investment platform.  The Legacy platform offers unique and creative financial products that extend beyond standard guidelines. These products encompass acquisition loans, construction loans, rehab financing, and bridge loans that all reflect our common-sense approach to lending.

Currently, Legacy works with hundreds of homebuilders, brokers and mortgage loan officers while also serving thousands of investors across five real estate investment funds with access to over $500 million in equity and debt capital.

About Rook Capital

Rook is an innovative fintech company focused on widening home ownership and solving housing affordability.  Rook’s Shared Value Investment™ brings homebuyers, investors, and the housing ecosystem into partnership with full life-cycle alignment.  Rook has developed key partnerships with community banks, credit unions, community foundations and real estate companies.  Rook raised capital from a syndicate of strategic investors including LL Funds, First Mile Ventures, Kickstart Fund, Service Provider Capital, and Tango Ventures.

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April 16, 2024by Paul Dunay
Written by Paul Dunay
Paul Dunay is an award-winning B2B marketing expert with more than 20 years’ success in generating demand and creating awareness for leading technology, consumer products, financial services and professional services organizations. Paul is the global vice president of marketing for Maxymiser a leading web optimization firm, and author of four “Dummies” books: Facebook Marketing for Dummies (Wiley 2009), Social Media and the Contact Center for Dummies (Wiley Custom Publishing 2010), Facebook Advertising for Dummies (Wiley 2010) and Facebook Marketing for Dummies 2nd Edition (Wiley 2011). His unique approach to marketing has led to recognition of Paul as a BtoB Magazine Top 25 B2B Marketer of the Year for 2010 and 2009 and winner of the DemandGen Award for Utilizing Marketing Automation to Fuel Corporate Growth in 2008. He is also a finalist for the last six years in a row in the Marketing Excellence Awards competition of the Information Technology Services Marketing Association (ITSMA), and is a 2010 and 2005 gold award winner in Driving Demand. Buzz Marketing for Technology, Paul’s blog, has been recognized as a Top 20 Marketing Blog for 2009 and 2008, a Top Blog to Watch for 2009 and 2008, and an Advertising Age Power 150 blog in the “Daily Ranking of Marketing Blogs.” Paul has shared his marketing thought leadership as a featured speaker for the American Marketing Association, BtoB Magazine, CMO Club, MarketingProfs, Marketing Sherpa, Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG), and ITSMA. He has appeared on Fox News, and his articles have been featured in BusinessWeek, The New York Times, BtoB Magazine, MarketingProfs and MarketingSherpa. Paul holds an Executive Certificate in Strategy and Innovation from MIT’s Sloan School of Management and a bachelor’s degree in Marketing and Computer Science from Ithaca College.