AssetTech Pioneer Pepper Names Romi Mahajan as President

To read the full release go here

Q: We just saw the announcement. Congratulations on joining Pepper as President.

A: Thanks Paul. I am thrilled to have the trust and faith reposed in me by the Founding team at Pepper, specifically CEO Pulak Sinha. Pepper is an important part of the AssetTech ecosystem, and has in fact been a pioneer in the space so I don’t take this mantle lightly.

Q: Tell us a bit more about Pepper’s plans- how is 2023 shaping up?

A: Pepper has been commercially active for a short time only- just a few years. The platform was developed to de-risk customers, partners, and investors. CTO Jaskaran Singh is a world-class architect and technologist and CEO Pulak Sinha knows more about the industry than I will ever. They tailor made the platform for Asset Managers, especially in Alts, Secondaries, Private Markets, and so on. They built it in conjunction with some large customers and now we’ve unleashed the Kraken. So 2023 looks, well, very buoyant.

Well we are super excited to see where you take Pepper from here!

Boulder, CO  Oct 18, 2022 – PropTech innovator Rook Capital partners with Keller Williams Northern Colorado and First Bank to expand home ownership and solve the home affordability problem. Leveraging the power of its Shared Value Investment™, Rook Capital brings together homebuyers and community-based investors to accelerate home ownership and build communities.

“The last decade has seen a consistent upward trend in house prices. Combine that with higher interest rates and you get a really difficult situation for first time homebuyers and young families looking to establish community and generate wealth. Rook Capital has tailor-made a solution for this scenario and we are grateful to partner with Keller Williams Northern Colorado and First Bank to bring it to market and get families in homes,” said Rook Capital CEO Ed Messman.

Rook Capital’s Shared Value Investment™ creates a partnership between homebuyers and community-based investors to purchase a house with shared equity, shared risk and shared reward. The Shared Value Investment™ combines the power and protection of traditional home financing to offer homebuyers the ability to get into the right house with lower payments.

“We are proud to work alongside great partners to help get people in the right homes and build community,” said Messman. Keller Williams Northern Colorado’s David Rusaw added, “We have many prospective customers who just need a little help to be able to buy a house. Rook’s solution helps us expand the footprint of people we are able to help. It’s truly a winning partnership.”

John Ricotta of First Bank added, “One of our primary charters is to give back to the community that supports us. The housing situation in cities like Boulder, Colorado and other hotspots in the country are dire for young families. In partnership with Rook, we are opening new vistas of possibility for these prospective home buyers who are looking to live their American Dream.”

In this scenario, First Bank provides the 1st mortgage on the house while Rook brings up to 25% to help homeowners purchase and close. The homeowner makes no payments on Rook’s portion and can thus save or re-invest the money saved.

Rook leverages advanced data-science and modeling to identify locales and properties that offer the best prospects for return.

Rook is an innovative PropTech company focused on widening home ownership and solving home affordability. Rook’s Shared Value Investment brings homebuyers, investors, and the housing ecosystem into partnership with full life-cycle alignment. Rook is backed by a diverse set of investors, including LL Funds, First Mile Ventures, Kickstart Fund, Service Provider Capital, and Tango Ventures.

Keller Williams Northern Colorado is a leading brokerage and real estate firm serving the vibrant communities in Colorado. Keller Williams, the world’s largest real estate franchise by agent count, has more than 1,100 offices and 200,000 associates. They are also No. 1 in units and sales volume in the United States.

FirstBank began providing banking services in 1963. Today, it’s known as an industry leader in digital banking and has grown to be one of the largest privately held banks in the United States, maintaining more than $25 billion in assets and 110 branch locations across Colorado, Arizona and California. FirstBank has been recognized as a top corporate philanthropist, contributing nearly $75 million and thousands of volunteer hours to charitable organizations. MEMBER FDIC

Contact: Romi Mahajan | KKM Group | romi@thekkmgroup.com

Boulder, CO  Sept 18, 2022- PropTech innovator Rook announced a $4.1 million capital raise and access to a warehouse credit facility as it looks to grow its “Shared Value Investment” program, helping prospective homebuyers purchase the right home in return for a portion of the equity upside.  In an environment of high house prices and rising interest rates, Rook offers homebuyers the ability to get into the right house, while sharing risk and reward with community-focused investors.  A diverse set of investors provided the capital including LL Funds, First Mile Ventures, Kickstart Fund, Service Provider Capital, and Tango Ventures.  LL Funds participated in the equity and is also providing the warehouse credit facility.

The last decade has seen sharp increases in house prices. Even with the recent slowdown, prices are near historical highs; in some desirable metros, prices are upwards of 10 times the “median income,” rendering homeownership an impossibility.  Seventy percent of Millennials when polled suggest that homeownership is just a dream.  At the same time, rents are increasing across the country at upwards of 50% in some areas, delivering a one-two punch for prospective home-buyers.

“There is a large portion of the population that is entering their prime home ownership years and are facing the daunting reality of buying a home with high-prices and rising interest rates; still, they desire homeownership, the ability to establish community and don’t want to be perma-renters,” said Ed Messman, Rook Co-Founder and CEO.

According to Jim Morrissey, partner at LL Funds,  “Rook offers an exciting, new financing construct for prospective homeowners to buy houses in a shared equity model.  Bringing investors and homebuyers into a symbiotic partnership with shared risk and reward and full life-cycle alignment is the quantum leap we wanted to support.”

Rook’s platform thoughtfully integrates web3 features that seek to engage a new demographic in helping to solve home affordability.  Rook Co-founder and CTO Kevin Cawley said, “We are leveraging the opportunities of Decentralized Finance and applying them to the world’s largest asset class – housing.”

Serene Papenfuss, Principal at Kickstart Fund says, “We’re incredibly excited to partner with Rook because of its clear value proposition to all market participants: it brings diversification to home owners and investors, increases home ownership affordability, and plays to the DeFi ethos.  In a time of soaring house prices and what we believe are sharing economy tailwinds, Rook is needed more than ever.”

Aaron Stachel, partner at First Mile Ventures added, “Home affordability is one of those problems that hits you in the face every day while reading headlines, and it’s only getting worse as mortgage rates rise.  The Rook team has developed an elegant solution to get the next generation of homebuyers into homes they can afford while providing a way for investors to access residential real estate without becoming a landlord.”

Rook will use the proceeds to continue building out its partnerships, expand into new and compelling geographies, and to build an ecosystem of community-focused investors who match the needs of homebuyers.

Rook is an innovative PropTech company focused on widening home ownership and solving home affordability.  Rook’s Shared Value Investment brings homebuyers, investors, and the housing ecosystem into partnership with full life-cycle alignment.

FirstMile Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm who commits early in a company’s life and helps them set the pace for future success.  Kickstart Fund is a venture capital fund for early-stage startups in Utah, Colorado, and the Mountain West and we back the most visionary entrepreneurs with capital, community, and expertise for the journey.  LL Funds is focused on investing in specialty consumer finance companies who rely on the Asset Backed Securities marketplace for growth and success.  Their private equity funds provide growth equity to specialty finance companies; their lending funds provide warehouse lines to such companies; and their public market funds invest in ABS securities of all types.

1. Tell us about Blueprint and how you approach the communities in real estate that you serve?

We see Blueprint as a “big tent” event, including all of the different real estate asset classes, and all of the different ways that technology is disrupting their various businesses. Blueprint is the single event every year where you know that all of the major players in the real estate tech ecosystem will be gathering to learn, network, and get deals done. We see our annual Vegas event as a vital mechanism for the industry to push innovation forward, and we take a “white glove” approach to building our community in the sense that we want to facilitate as many connections as we can among the important players. We have done our job right if everyone at Blueprint feels like they’ve made important contacts at the end of our event, and can go back to their offices energized, full of ideas, and with connections for partnerships.

2. While many live in a world of Zoom, what are the special and particular reasons to do a large physical event?

I think COVID taught us all that there is only so much that can be done over Zoom. We all did the best we could to keep things rolling while under lockdown, but I don’t know anyone who prefers virtual events to meeting in person — both from an experience standpoint, and in terms of outcomes. It is just much, much harder to create the kinds of meaningful professional relationships that result in major deals without the experience of being in person. During our inaugural event last October, which was the first time many of our attendees had gone anywhere since the pandemic, we received overwhelming positive feedback about the joy and relief people felt in being around others again face-to-face — and I’m sure that was a major factor in why several fundings and M&A transactions can be traced back to connections made at the event last year.

3. You have a mighty array of speakers. What are the binding and common elements that make these speakers so great?

Ultimately we feel like the speaker lineup is the very best collection of real estate tech innovators and technologists ever assembled under one roof. We work very hard on our programming throughout the year to engage with the most dynamic companies and people who are working on solving the most difficult and important issues facing the real estate industry as it evolves. As we put together the agenda, industry leading VCs like Fifth Wall, Navitas, Moderne Ventures and Metaprop have been a great resource to help us identify rocketship startups destined for great things. And it’s essential to have the major real estate operators like Tishman Speyer, Cushman & Wakefield, Jamestown, Lincoln Property Company and Greystar to share with our attendees what the needs of industry buyers are, and where they need innovation most.

4. As you think about the real estate ecosystem, what are the nuggets that attendees can expect to receive- that help them, practically, do their jobs better?

We have a fairly wide range of content on stage, much of which is aimed at understanding where the ball is moving in real estate tech (both in terms of client needs and investor enthusiasm) and figuring out which innovative practices and technologies will be truly game-changing for the industry broadly. We’ll have panels that dive deep into multifamily management, fractionalized assets, ibuying, uses of data in construction, and much much more. Attendees will come away with a better and broader understanding of the industry, and that sharp lens will help them have a better understanding of how their individual companies can find green space and thrive.

5. Do you see a lot of investment activity in the space and do you expect a good number of investors to be present?

According to CRETI, $13.1 billion in venture capital was invested in the real estate technology space in just the first half of 2022. While the climate has been a bit rough for some sectors of the startup economy, proptech has continued to attract strong backing, and we’re still hearing plenty of optimism from the venture community. We are proud to say that every prominent firm investing in proptech will be at Blueprint, so it should be a rich environment for companies looking for funding.

6. What are your parting thoughts on attending your event?

Blueprint Vegas 2022 is the only event where the entire real estate ecosystem will gather. There is no better place to make meaningful connections with peers and potential partners. Come for the thought leadership from companies like Pacaso, Compass, Moinian Group and Morgan Properties; don’t miss the packed Innovation Stage filled with the entrepreneurs changing the face of the built world; take advantage of our world-class networking technology; and make time for a little fun at our After Party featuring the Grammy Award winning performer Nelly. This is really an event NOT to be missed!

Technology Marketing executive and investor Romi Mahajan has joined PropTech Platform HouseAmp as its first Chief Marketing Officer. His responsibilities will be building a world-class brand, generating demand for HouseAmp’s products and services, and building a scalable marketing infrastructure and team. Previous to HouseAmp, Mahajan spent nine years at Microsoft and has been CMO of 6 different companies, including most recently leading PropTech AI play Quantarium.

“We are ecstatic to have Romi join HouseAmp as part of our Leadership Team, “says Rick Hennessey, HouseAmp CEO and Co-Founder. “He brings enormous creative chops and a successful track record to lead our marketing efforts,” he adds

HouseAmp is an innovative platform designed to align the needs of Homeowners, Service Pros, Brokers, and Agents. The US residential real estate market is the country’s largest asset class- with $40 trillion of aggregate value. American homeowners have $22 trillion of equity in their homes but up to 75% of them cannot easily, securely, and cost-effectively access this equity. Millions of homeowners can substantially raise the value of their homes via refurbishments that they do not have the cash to do. HouseAmp’s “Pay Later Platform” allows homeowners to easily access the liquidity needed to make these changes, while having to provide no money upfront, opening a new vista of possibilities for house-rich Americans.

“PropTech as a space is booming and HouseAmp’s offerings stand-out as not only powerful in the marketplace but also aligned with the notion that families’ houses are often their largest investments and the ability to both access and grow equity is a life-changer for the vast swath of US homeowners,” says Mahajan.

HouseAmp is based in Seattle and has team members distributed throughout the United States. Backed by serial entrepreneurs with a superb record of exits, the company will be tripling headcount in 2022 as it embarks on hyper-growth.