Melbourne real estate agent review platform RateMyAgent has secured $5 million in funding at a $20 million valuation, which will be used to consolidate the startup’s position in the market and expand internationally.
The funding round was led by Catch of the Day’s Gabby Leibovich and the Smorgon family. It comes as the second round of funding for the startup, with RateMyAgent raising $1 million in 2014 from Kidder Williams to take the product off the ground.
CEO of RateMyAgent, Mark Armstrong said the startup has the US, UK, New Zealand and Asia on its radar for future expansion plans.
“This injection of capital will galvanise our strong position in the Australian real estate market and allow us to explore and take RateMyAgent international,” said Armstrong.
RateMyAgent, first launched in mid-2014, provides recommendations, rankings and reviews for real estate agents in Australia. Its website is designed to help buyers and vendors identify and research the performance of real estate agents and agencies through comparative reviews and data.
Agent reviews are submitted by vendors upon successfully completing a property sale. Users can search for agents that meet their needs and filter their criteria by region, most number of agent sales, highest average sale price, and number of active listings.
The site is currently in the midst of a full redesign and is in preparation for launch into the US and other international markets.
“In the coming months we plan to release improvements to our social media platform and a fully integrated re-marketing product,” said Armstrong.
Since launch RateMyAgent’s focus has been on consolidating market share and encouraging more agents and agencies to use the system. The platform is currently integrated with over 3,000 real estate agencies who have set up direct data feeds, with 18,000 agents on the site. Agents who use RateMyAgent make up 70-80 percent of all real estate sales in Australia.
RateMyAgent aims to make its site the primary platform for agents to gather and share reviews from clients. With over 120,000 reviews posted to date and with a new review added every five minutes, the platform is positioning itself well within the Australian market but faces competition from fellow startup OpenAgent.
“In the last 12 months 13,000 vendors have told us they used RateMyAgent to help them select their selling agent and they have sold property worth over $9 billion,” said Armstrong.
He said RateMyAgent now captures reviews for one in four property transactions in Australia, which it hopes to replicate in international markets.
Image: Xavier Perronnet, Mark Armstrong and Ed van Roosendaal. Source: Supplied.
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