Bowery Valuation, a cloud-based appraisal platform for commercial real estate, will open an Orlando office in the next year after raising $35 million in a Series B financing round.
The New York-based company aims to launch at least one Central Florida location and one Miami office as it grows its Sunshine State footprint. The firm opened its first Florida office in Palm Beach Gardens two months ago.
Bowery Valuation expects to hire six to 10 people in Orlando in the first year the office is open, co-founder and co-CEO John Meadows told Orlando Business Journal. Those hires will include a managing director to lead the office, as well as appraisers and associates, Meadows said. "They likely will be recent college graduates from Florida universities that we put through out rigorous in-house four-week training program."
Founded in 2017, Bowery Valuation provides tech-driven software solutions designed to modernize the commercial real estate appraisal process. The platform integrates with public data sources to automatically generate property information in a way that aims to save appraisers time and driving efficiency. The company was valued at $90 million in 2019, according to PitchBook data.
The firm's Series B round was led by the growth equity unit of Goldman Sachs, with participation from Capital One Ventures and existing investors Builders VC, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm, and Greenspring Associates.
Jade Mandel, VP in growth equity for Goldman Sachs Asset Management, said lenders and property owners are demanding faster and more accurate appraisals as commercial real estate transactions become more complex.
"Through their differentiated technology and the innovative work of their team, Bowery Valuation has led a dramatic transformation of the commercial real estate appraisal process and is quickly establishing itself as the preferred appraisal firm in the industry," Mandel said.
The recent capital injection will fuel Bowery's national expansion, including its move into South Florida. According to Bowery, the market's commercial real estate boom has resulted in a shortage of appraisers, making the area ripe for the company's technology. A spokesperson told the Business Journal that the firm already has relationships with several lenders there, including Amerant, BankUnited and Ocean Bank.
Real estate tech businesses have been landing venture capital at growing levels. Global investment dollars for these types of companies grew year over year each year from 2014-2019, including a 65% spike to $8.9 billion in 2019, according to New York-based CB Insights.
Multiple local tech startups target the real estate industry. For example, Winter Park-based Leasecake Inc., which raised $3 million earlier this year, developed a property management software that also allows businesses to manage services like insurance renewals, safety inspections and managing business licenses. On the residential real estate side, Orlando-based Home Lending Pal Inc. is growing its artificial intelligence-backed mortgage advisory platform.
The growth of technology-focused companies is important because it can lead to the creation of high-wage jobs. Metro Orlando's average annual tech job wage is $89,180, according to Los Angeles-based commercial real estate brokerage CBRE. That's much higher than metro Orlando's average annual wage of $48,530, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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