Austin-based AnthemIQ has raised a $10 million series A round for its real estate-technology platform, the company announced May 10.
The round, led by Dallas-based real estate investment firm Staubach Capital, is expected to accelerate the company's growth and help it expand its product, which was formally launched in February to help users manage the entirety of a commercial real estate transaction.
AnthemIQ is an offshoot of commercial real estate firm Elevate Growth Partners — both companies are co-founded by Kenny Tomlin and Chris Skyles. Skyles is also chief broker officer for AnthemIQ, while Tomlin is executive chairman. Mike Ward is CEO. Its legal name is Anthem IQ Inc.
The platform provides software for the three key players in a commercial real estate lease: listing agents, tenant reps and tenants. AnthemIQ allows users to search, review and compare properties; set up tours; exchange proposals and prepare and execute leases. Combining all of those functions in one place will reduce the transaction timeline, AnthemIQ founders said.
Staubach Capital founding partner Jeff Staubach said he's long searched for a tenant rep management system that didn't leave his clients asking for more. That's what he found with AnthemIQ.
“What Anthem does is it takes everything and puts it into one place,” Staubach said. “It brings all this stuff together to make it easier on the broker, but then also the client.”
While AnthemIQ has been described as a Zillow-like experience for the commercial real estate sector, Tomlin invoked another tech company comparison.
“Customers really do have that Uber moment," he said. "Remember when you first started using Uber? It’s like ‘man, this is how it should have always been.’”
AnthemIQ was incubated at Elevate Growth Partners out of a desire for the tenant rep business to use technology more effectively. The companies now operate independently of each other, Tomlin said.
“Elevate literally pays a license fee now," he said.
The co-founders have touted earlier iterations of the platform, then called ElevateIQ, since at least August 2020. In October 2020, Skyles told Austin Inno that the platform had the potential to become an industry standard.
Skyles and Tomlin hope that time is here. Skyles said the $10 million series A funding round was "oversubscribed in a pretty significant way," and that the company has accumulated more than 1,000 users since launch. Tomlin predicts AnthemIQ could have "multiple tens of thousands of users" within a year.
“We really think its going to transform a multi-trillion-dollar industry," Tomlin said. “This product, at scale, is a monumental business and company.”
Early adopters include CBRE, JLL and Transwestern. Skyles said the first tenant he used the software with was fitness company F45 Training — one the world's fastest-growing gym franchises with more than 2,000 locations in 50-plus countries. Sources told Austin Business Journal in January that F45 signed an eight-year lease to occupy 44,000 square feet at Penn Field off South Congress Avenue.
The process occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic, Skyles said, when F45 wasn't doing travel or marketing tours.
Though the company did ultimately walk the space before signing the lease, F45 got to that point "without ever flying to Austin and touring the property," Skyles said.
AnthemIQ has a team of more than 40 employees today and expects to hire another 40 to 50 employees this year, Tomlin said. Some of those roles are expected to be remote, while others will be based in Austin and Bentonville, Arkansas. The company currently has eight open positions, according to its website.
“We are aggressively looking for technical product managers, engineering talent and we are aggressively building our sales team," Skyles said.
Another investor, Peter Freeland of Austin venture capital firm Unbundled Capital, said AnthemIQ is at the intersection of a lot of things he focuses on.
“My philosophy is that everything is driven by product, so I want to align with entrepreneurs that have a product-first approach," Freeland said. “I love products that are built on a founder’s deep understanding of the industry.”
AnthemIQ certainly qualifies, as Skyles is a 20-year veteran of the commercial real estate industry and Tomlin is serial entrepreneur who also co-founded YouEarnedIt and Rockfish Interactive.
“I think this company can become the operating system for commercial real estate. It has potential to become a marketplace over time and aggregate incredibly valuable data," Freeland said. “The software has incredible value to the brokers themselves. They’re licensing the product for $300 per month per tenant rep.”
Proptech has been a hot sector for VC as of late, especially as the pandemic has caused many companies and executives to rethink their space needs. Other Austin companies operating in commercial proptech include Otso and RealMassive.
