Participated · Seed · Sep 2022

Willow Servicing is a San Francisco-based cloud mortgage servicing platform that automates routine servicing tasks and compliance. Led by founder and CEO Laura Cain, the platform was originally designed to manage the first few payments on a loan but quickly expanded to support additional loan types and processes. It now supports HELOCs, construction loans, and handles appraisal and payoff fees. Since launching earlier this year, the company has serviced $750M in loans. Willow intends to use the funds from the recent round to expand operations and broaden its business reach.

Participated · Series B · Dec 2021

Clever Real Estate is a St. Louis, MO-based real estate technology company led by CEO Luke Babich. Its primary product is a realtor matching platform that lets sellers and buyers compare personalized realtor matches and save on fees. Clever’s network spans 19,000 agents across all 50 states. The company plans to use the $2M funding to expand operations and broaden its business reach and is launching a title and escrow closing solution in the second quarter of 2023. It is also continuing to grow its lender partnerships channel. Prior to this round the company had previously raised $11M in equity capital. Clever Real Estate provides consumers with free tools, expert advice, and matches to local vetted service providers through an online agent‑matching platform operating in all 50 states. The company runs a portfolio of online content brands that reach over 11 million readers and claims to be the nation’s largest discount real estate agent matching service. Led by CEO Ben Mizes and co‑founder/COO Luke Babich, Clever supports consumers across the real estate journey and reported $4 billion in total real estate sold through its platform, pacing to sell over 6,000 homes in 2021. The company plans to expand its team significantly, growing from 75 to 200 full‑time employees in 2022. Management says it will use new funding to expand the team further and accelerate expansion into the mortgage vertical.

Led · Series A · Aug 2021

Home Lending Pal operates a blockchain-based, AI-powered mortgage advisory platform and technology-enabled marketplace that aims to reduce bias and friction in the home research and origination process. The platform assists consumers—particularly minorities and millennials—in assessing mortgage readiness, guiding them to actions that improve access to financing and helping them select originators using an AI algorithm that predicts probability to close. It de-identifies HMDA data until after underwriting decisions and uses distributed ledger technology to digitally validate underwriting data from a single documentation upload, allowing multiple lenders to evaluate borrowers without upfront disclosure of age, sex, or race. The company emphasizes borrower data empowerment, personalized education, and reducing origination friction for qualified borrowers while creating roadmaps for unqualified borrowers to become qualified. Home Lending Pal planned a demonstration of the next phase to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in early September and a public release for consumer use and feedback by late September. As of the article, the company had raised $3.5M to date. Home Lending Pal (HLP) offers an Intelligent Mortgage Advisor that uses machine learning and distributed ledger technology to simulate underwriting and match prospective borrowers with mortgage loans and lenders. Prospective customers link banking information and receive a soft credit pull through Equifax to create a starting underwriting profile. HLP’s platform uncovers hidden homeownership costs, compares likelihoods of approval across lenders, and allows lenders to see necessary underwriting data without requiring borrowers to disclose age, sex, or race. The company is co-located in Durham and Orlando and was selected for IBM’s Hyper Protect Accelerator in 2019 to enhance security and scalability. HLP’s founders, CEO Bryan Young and COO Steven Better, emphasize serving BIPOC communities, plan to give 2% back to those communities, and work with former HUD employees to help women and close the wealth gap. Recent funds have supported new hires, a mobile app launch, and web interface updates.

Participated · Series B · Mar 2021

Maxwell provides a digital mortgage and fulfillment platform that automates workflow and uses AI to streamline and accelerate the mortgage process for community and small to midsize lenders. The company says its technology-powered services improve borrower experience, increase operational efficiency, and enhance lenders' economics. Maxwell reports it helps more than 250 community lenders nationwide and claims lender sales teams on its platform outproduce the market by 20% each month. Founded in 2015, Maxwell positions itself to simplify and modernize the mortgage process as markets and borrower expectations change. The company announced a $16.3 million Series B to support its growth. It plans to use the funding to accelerate product development, expand market penetration, and recruit product and engineering talent to meet demand. Maxwell offers a mortgage automation platform that creates an elegant digital workspace for lending teams, homebuyers and real estate agents on any device. The platform connects to over 15,000 financial institutions to automate paperwork and signatures, speeding up the mortgage process by weeks. Maxwell uses proprietary algorithms built on its network of aggregated loan data to deliver insights and workflow adjustments for lenders. The company launched commercially on August 16 and is a 2016 graduate of Techstars. Maxwell plans to use new funding to recruit engineering talent in Denver and to roll out its platform to more lenders. Founders John Paasonen, Lance Poole and Rutul Dave bring experience from PayPal, Stanford’s Institute of Design coaching and multiple Silicon Valley startups.