Thanks to Pitchbook – Ribbon has raised $225 million in a combination of Series A equity and debt funding to help homebuyers pay their mortgages. Bain Capital Ventures,Greylock, NFX and NYCA participated in the equity portion, and they also provided the business with its $4 million seed round last year.
The New York-based company provides a real estate platform with an emphasis on the mortgage part of the homebuying process. If a buyer is unable to secure a loan before the home purchase closes, Ribbon will buy the property itself and provide 180 extra days to obtain a mortgage. The startup is currently active in North Carolina and South Carolina, with plans to expand into 10 new markets by the end of 2019.
In the venture capital world, real estate tech is a big industry that’s been a hotbed of VC investment over the last several years: PitchBook data shows that VCs poured more than $6 billion into the space in 2017, and this year has seen nearly $4 billion worth of venture investment so far. Just last month, SoftBank participated in two separate $400 million rounds for real estate tech companies Opendoor and Compass.
Mortgage tech hasn’t received as much attention as the larger real estate tech industry, but global VC investment in the subsector has picked up over the last five years: