We live in an age of connectivity and have trackers for everything. We monitor our fitness, our monthly expenses, even the screen time on our iPhone.
So, a Denver startup wondered, 'why not monitor the single largest asset you'll likely ever own? Your home.'
"It’s time for the individual homeowner or renter to have the intelligence to take action to grow and protect their equity," Ernie Graham, Homebot co-founder and CEO, said.
Denver-based Homebot is a financial dashboard designed to help homeowners save money and build wealth with their home. It identifies key financial opportunities, including when to rent, buy or sell, or when to refinance or remodel.
Homebot was one of ten companies to take part in the sixth annual Realogy FWD Innovation Summit, a competition for real estate focused tech startups.
The Denver company took home gold, winning a $25,000 cash prize and placement in Realogy's ZapStore, an app and service marketplace for affiliated brokers and sales professionals.
"Homebot positions the real estate agent as the expert of real estate value, displays hundreds of thousands of alternative opportunities and delivers information in a user-friendly way," Graham said in a release.
Homebot is sold to lenders and real estate professionals, allowing them to give the tool to their clients for free. It gives them an opportunity to to provide a real service to their clients, Graham said, leading to increased future business.
Graham said the Realogy competition was a great way to validate Homebot in the real estate community and will make future partnerships easier to come by. The company's primary user is mortgage lenders, but Graham said Homebot is also being used by thousands of real estate agents across the country.
The company raised a $4.5 million funding round in 2017 and Graham said they'll look towards another raise in the first half of next year.
As they continue to grow, Graham said Homebot will be further developing the application to serve a wider variety of needs.
"We want to go deeper with our product and use it to protect wealth in down markets," he said.
The company will also be hiring employees, both in Denver and in top real estate markets across the country to expand the team. Graham said Homebot continues to look for developers in the Denver area as they build out the tool.
