imgres-10RunTitle, an online title search marketplace geared to the oil and gas industry, has landed $4 million in Series A venture capital led by Austin Ventures.
The Houston-based startup also relocated to Austin as a condition of the financing.
The company plans to use the money to expand its inventory, on product development, distribution and marketing.
“Austin Ventures expects RunTitle to have a big impact on the current title market, which has remained largely the same for the last century. The Company has a timely opportunity to build an extraordinary information services business,” Mike Dodd, Partner, Austin Ventures, said in a news release. “The founding team brings a wealth of knowledge to an industry whose inefficiencies have yet to be disrupted by the Internet.” Dodd will also be joining the RunTitle board of directors.
The cloud-based title portal is aimed at the oil and gas industry, which looks to secure mineral rights for properties.
“Resource companies spend billions of dollars a year just to find out who owns mineral rights. This information – held in regional county courthouses and in private record databases across the country – has been very difficult to access. RunTitle will offer the industry an unprecedented database of information that will save customers substantial amounts of time and money. We will radically improve a labor-intensive process that hasn’t evolved with technology,” Reid Calhoon, RunTitle’s CEO, said in a news release.
RunTitle, which launched in August of 2012, is currently available in 13 states. It also graduated from the Houston energy startup program, the SURGE Accelerator.