Perch Raises $30M to Transform Home Buying & Selling

Imagine selling your home and showing it once instead of 15 times. Imagine finding your dream house and having it made move-in ready and customized the way you want. Imagine being able to close on your home in a few simple clicks – no paperwork, no hassle.

When people ask us why we started Perch, we come back to the above thought experiment. We wondered why we were still imagining these things, why wasn’t this the standard by now?

In this age of digital transformation, the world of real estate is stubbornly resistant to change. In the past 10 years, technology has massively disrupted retail, transportation, and currency markets - yet the single biggest financial transaction that most Americans will make has not fundamentally changed.

Yes, Zillow has improved online home discovery, and Compass and Redfin are improving the traditional agent model with technology, but when it comes to the actual purchase and sale of the home, things look shockingly similar to the way they have for decades.

Today, we’re excited to introduce Perch to the world. We are transforming the way Americans buy and sell their homes by making the process simple, certain, and convenient. We’re also announcing that we’ve raised $30M in financing to help us scale our home buying operations and maximize the impact we’re having on homeowners’ and buyers’ lives. The equity round was led by FirstMark Capital, with participation from Juxtapose and Accomplice. Like us, they see the massive opportunity to better serve homeowners and buyers and believe that we’re at the very beginning phase of true innovation in residential real estate.

The problem

Selling your home today usually means waiting 3+ months and spending money on fixing up your home, with no certainty of when you will actually close or at what price. It’s a process riddled with inconvenience: from dozens of home showings, repairs to be able to sell, and multiple parties to work with (agents, title companies, inspectors, lenders, end buyer/seller, etc.). If you’re lucky enough to get an offer you think is fair, you then have to wait with bated breath to see if the offer actually closes (since your buyer is often selling a home of their own too).

In the middle of all this, you also have to find your next home …a home that needs to meet all of your family’s requirements, at the right price, in the right neighborhood, and on the right timeline.

The single biggest financial transaction of our lives is stressful and, unfortunately, rarely the delightful experience we see on HGTV (but we love House Hunters regardless!)

Perch is changing this entire experience, from start to finish, to make the home search and sale process stress-free and simple.

Our vision

Perch has developed a home selling experience that brings true control and convenience to homeowners. By harnessing the power of data science, technology, and human-centered design, we’ve developed a seller experience that delivers a market price offer for your home in 24 hours with the ability to close at a time of your choosing. No home showings, no repairs to do, no contingent offers, no fear of the offer falling through before closing. It’s the way a home sale always should have worked.

Innovating on the home sale process is where we are starting, but it’s not where we finish. We believe that the way to truly transform residential real estate is by building a superior selling and buying experience - by becoming a marketplace for homes. For home buyers, we’re pioneering a new category of homes: Certified Pre-Owned. We renovate the homes we purchase to make them move-in ready and offer a warranty. No more worries about touring homes where the paint is peeling or the house smells like a petting zoo. We will be automating access to the related transactions that touch a home closing, including mortgage, title, and inspection. Perch will be the simple and easy way to find, purchase, and close on your home.

Residential real estate is the in the first inning of disruption. Every year $1.8T of single-family homes changes hands…the value of the US housing stock is $30 trillion, which is larger than the US stock market. It is early days, and we look forward to driving innovation in the industry over the next decade to make homeowners’ and buyers’ lives easier.

The change coming to home buying & selling is similar to the evolution of the used car market, which is a $700 billion industry, about half of the size of the residential home market. Businesses like Carvana and CarMax have doubled the Net Promoter Scores of typical used car dealers, which helped them become multi-billion dollar companies. CarMax has grown to a 2.5% share of the used auto market by bringing convenience and simplicity to the car buying experience. We believe Perch will drive this same transformation in residential real estate.

Our team

Transforming consumer real estate requires deep experience in creating digital products, building delightful consumer experiences, and real estate investment. Perch has assembled a world-class team of senior leaders to drive this change. Court Cunningham, CEO, brings 20+ years experience in building online software businesses, beginning with his experience at DoubleClick where he built DARTmail into a leading email marketing solution that was ultimately sold to Epsilon. Most recently, he was CEO of Yodle where he scaled the business from 15 people to 1,500 and sold to Web.com for $340M in 2016. Head of Growth, Phil DeGisi, brings 15 years experience in consumer marketing across startups and large-scale companies, including Quidsi (sold to Amazon for $540M) and Walmart.com. Most recently, he served as CMO at CommonBond, the consumer lender, where he helped scale the business to over $1B in loans. Aaron Altom, Head of Real Estate, brings deep expertise in residential real estate acquisition, having purchased over 5,000 homes in his career at Waypoint and American Homes for Rent.

We believe that any company is only as strong as the team, which is why we’ve brought together some of the top talent across consumer tech, marketing, and real estate. If you’re interested in being part of what we’re building and want to make a real difference in homeowners’ lives, we’re hiring. We’re headquartered in New York and have launched our home purchasing and selling in San Antonio, Texas, with more markets launching over the next year.

Our fundraise is an exciting milestone for us, but we’re just getting started on our mission. We look forward to serving the millions of home buyers and sellers in the years ahead.