Real estate crowdfunding platform, PeerStreet, announced on Thursday it raised $15 million during a Series A funding round, which was led by Silicon Valley venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, with additional participation from The Kaiser Family Foundation, Rembrandt Venture Partners, and Montage Ventures.
The portal revealed that Alex Rampell, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, led the investment and will take a seat on PeerStreet’s board. He revealed:
“PeerStreet is one of the fastest growing marketplace lenders we’ve seen, scaling to $165 million in originated loans in a little over a year, with great returns against a secured asset. They have a unique distribution model that allows them to leverage existing lending networks to lower loss rates, and grow without direct marketing.”
The funding comes just over one year after PeerStreet launched its investment platform in October 2015. To date, the firm has funded more than $165 million in loan investments and returned more than $50 million to investors; all with zero losses. PeerStreet also expanded its national footprint, working with more than 50 lenders and offering investments across half the country. Brew Johnson, CEO and co-founder of PeerStreet, shared:
“I speak for the entire team at PeerStreet when I say how incredibly excited we are to include Andreessen Horowitz on the roster of stellar investors in our company. This round of funding will help us further execute on our goal of building a world class investment platform for real estate debt.”
Brett Crosby, COO and co-founder PeerStreet, added:
“This is another strong signal to our customers, partners and lenders that our business is on the right trajectory to fulfill our mission of connecting investors more directly with loans. “Our approach benefits the entire ecosystem by providing more transparency, access and control to mortgage finance.”