The future of the housing market might be unclear due to the economic impact of COVID-19, but some Bay Area startups have already hit the ground running in an effort to provide homeowners with some financial relief.
San Francisco-based startup States Title announced Thursday that it raised $123 million in a Series C round led by Greenspring Associates.
The title and settlement provider uses machine intelligence to speed up traditionally slow escrow processes for both residential and commercial real estate transactions. Applying data science, the company can search for and create predictive title insurance claims. From there, the company assigns a risk score to indicate how safe a property is from legal claims and liabilities. According to the company, States Title ultimately aims to process titles faster and provide more efficient underwriting for its clients in the process.
Going forward, the company plans on using the new capital to make its machine intelligence platform more efficient in order to speed up the closing process.
“Right now we are witnessing an unprecedented shift in the structural foundation of the real estate industry,” Max Simkoff, founder and CEO of States Title, said in a statement. “The most pressing need in our industry right now is to remove friction and cost from mortgage closings, and to do so with solutions that can deliver fully remote, instant, digital experiences.”
According to the company, States Title has seen exponential growth over the last year and has gone on to become one of the top 10 largest real estate settlement services in the United States. The company acquired North American Title and North American Title Insurance in 2019.
“This new funding will allow [us] to provide enhanced support for lenders, real estate agents and homeowners, as well as provide a solid foundation for continued technological investment in the face of future economic uncertainty,” Simkoff said.
Simkoff told Crunchbase News that the company also plans on “aggressively” hiring additional staff support for its data science and engineering teams, in addition to building out a new operations and service delivery model.
States Title was founded in 2016 and has raised nearly $230 million in venture capital to date, according to Crunchbase. New investors Horizons Ventures, Eminence Capital and HSCM Bermuda also participated in the round.
