Up until now, Louisville-based fintech startup Symba had to rely upon traditional marketing methods to generate customers — also known as real estate agents.
In two heavily populated parts of the country, that is no longer the case as Symba has recently announced two partnerships with large entities in the realms of Realtors: the Northern New England Real Estate Network (NEREN) and the Chicago Association of Realtors (CAR).
NEREN provides multiple listing services (MLS) for agents in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont and parts of New York. CAR gives Symba access to the Chicagoland area, the third largest metro area in the country.
The two deals combined will gain Symba distribution to approximately 30,000 agents, according to the company's co-founder and CEO Evan Knowles.
“We currently don’t have any of that distribution,” Knowles told me. “So that's why it's a big deal. To date, we’ve just been going one-to-one to agents … [We would] reach out to an agent, tell them about Symba and hopefully they buy — this is new territory because this is brand new distribution for us.”
Under the NEREN arrangement, Symba will be one of a few technology providers that would be listed on its dashboard. The startup will also work with NEREN to give its agents access to financial education support. The CAR arrangement is similar in nature.
Both NEREN and CAR agents will be able to have free access to Symba for a limited time leading up the tax season. Upon conclusion of the free trial, Symba will provide the two entities a revenue share.
Currently, the company, which was among KY Inno's 20 Startups to Watch in 2023, has approximately 200 paying users nationwide since its platform went live six months ago.
Symba’s customer-relationship management (CRM) platform allows real estate agents to expand their businesses by providing one location for them to upload contacts, track deals, organize tasks and monitor sales and commissions. There is currently a month-to-month price of $49.99 or $24.99 per month if a user pays for an entire year at once.
Knowles — who owns several commercial and residential properties in Lexington, Kentucky — founded Symba in 2019 with Ryan Harris, a residential real estate agent who never serves as the company’s head of growth. The company currently has five full-time employees and two part-time workers.
In 2021, the company was named a winner of both the Render Capital and Vogt competitions. It also was a semifinalist in our KY Inno Madness competition last year. In December, Symba wrapped up the fall 2022 Endeavor Scale-Up program.
To date, the company has secured approximately $750,000 in investments, with $600,000 of that coming in the early part of 2022 to close of a pre-seed round.
“We’re in between a pre-seed and seed right now,” said Knowles, who is also a co-host on the Middle Tech and DevelopLex podcasts. “So we’re feeling around that, but we plan to raise a seed this year.”
Other local investors include Keyhorse Capital and RSLP Ventures. Angel investors include Garrett French and Alex Brey.
Knowles added that the company hopes to double — at least — its number of users in the upcoming weeks, while beginning to grow its annual recurring revenue by 50% to 150%.
He said he hoped to secure similar partnerships later on as well.
