AnthemIQ: Closing Our $10 Million Series A
Bringing the CRE Industry to the 21st Century
It’s hard to believe that the Commercial Real Estate (CRE) industry has operated essentially the same way for the past 15 years considering how much technology has advanced and significantly improved most industries. Yet even the most technically savvy brokers still run their businesses through a combination of PDFs, Excel spreadsheets, text messages, and email. If you’ve searched for commercial space anytime in the past 15 years, you’ll know exactly what we are referring to.
That’s why we launched AnthemIQ (AIQ), based in Austin, Texas, in February of 2021. The goal: apply technology innovation to the CRE transaction. We believe strongly that the CRE workflow should provide speed, convenience, transparency, and personalization for all stakeholders. Those very same four pillars are found in amazingly successful platforms like Amazon, Uber, and Airbnb.
As our users (tenants, tenant reps, listing agents, and landlords) began using AIQ to search, communicate, negotiate, and sign leases, word-of-mouth spread quickly. Before we knew it we had over a thousand users on AIQ, throughout the United States and even Canada.
Getting Investments to Move Full Steam Ahead
Soon our mutual networks connected us with Texas native Jeff Staubach. We gave Jeff a quick demo, and he immediately wanted to join us as an investor and advisor. Jeff has had a long and successful career as a broker and leader at the Staubach Company and JLL. After a dinner together, it was clear we had a shared ethos and vision for AIQ and saw its importance for the industry. We wrapped up the terms of Staubach Capital’s investment and Jeff’s personal involvement on our board and as an active advisor.
In May, we announced the close of our $10 Million Series A. In addition to Staubach Capital, this round was raised by a number of successful technology entrepreneurs and CRE industry professionals. This financing will allow us to optimize and expand our solutions addressing some of the biggest headaches for firms, brokers, and clients, including:
- A modern and intuitive platform for presenting and reviewing properties (AnthemIQ reduces unnecessary client site visits by over 75%)
- A client experience that allows a broker to win more business, increasing transaction volume by up to 80%
- A marketplace of active searches and real-time collaboration between the tenant rep and leasing agents to quickly identify and present options to the client
- A streamlined digital workflow so tenant reps and leasing agents can work together to negotiate the agreement and get to a signed contract
- The ability to organize and store active deals, client search criteria, and corresponding documents in one place
A number of our current investors were actually customers who experienced first-hand the difference using AIQ made compared to the traditional model of emails and PDFs. This new funding will help the company keep up with its rapid growth trajectory and also expand our platform’s product offerings. While our team today is 40-people strong, we plan to be near 100 employees by year’s end. All focused on one goal, bringing technology innovation to the CRE industry.
