Real estate investing investment marketplace Groundfloor had a busy week. The company announced a partnership program after unveiling its Labs initiative at the Blueprint Conference.
Groundfloor recently surpassed $1 billion in investments on its platform and is accelerating growth through the Labs partnership program. Labs opened in beta earlier this year and has $10 million in assets under management. The initiative is designed to support partner entrepreneurs as they develop new concepts and help them quickly bring financial products to market by distributing to an established audience of alternative investors.
“For the past 10 years, Groundfloor has established a formidable track record in launching and scaling new alternative investment concepts for the mass market of individual retail investors,” said co-founder and CEO Brian Dally. “With the launch of Labs, we’re opening up not only our large investor base, but also our deep regulatory, underwriting and asset management expertise to entrepreneurs who share our vision. Together, we’re helping millions of investors build more wealth with tools that are better than those based on the same old public market securities.”
Two companies participated in Labs prior to its public launch. Nectar is a provider of cash flow advances to experienced operators of short-term rental properties. Labs has funded 43 deals with more than $5 million so far in 2023.
Discount Lots is a provider of financing to land investors. Labs has funded 12 deals for north of $500,000 in its first month on Groundfloor.
“Partnering with Groundfloor has been invaluable for us,” said Nectar co-founder and CEO Derrick Barker. “We always thought our product would be attractive to individual investors, and working with Labs proved it—fast. This new source of capital has already had a big impact on our growth, and we look forward to expanding our collaboration.”