Tampa tech company HOMEE has closed the latest iteration of its funding round, which brought in more than triple what it originally asked.
HOMEE closed an oversubscribed $17 million Series B-2 financing after raising $15 million and $4.5 million in the same funding round in 2019 and 2020, respectively.
“Just for simplicity, we like to keep the documents the same with obvious valuation increases throughout,” HOMEE CEO Doug Schaedler said. “So it’s more simplicity for closing it, to keep the core documents throughout the closes.”
The latest was intended to be another $5 million, Schaedler said, but brought more interest than expected.
The round was led by Boston-based financial fund Morningside. Insurance giants and previous investors also joined the round, including State Farm Ventures, Liberty Mutual Strategic Ventures, Hartford Investment Management Company, Forte Ventures, Activate Capital and Canadian-based insurance company Desjardins.
“We are excited to invest in HOMEE, and we believe their technology platform and team will continue to solve the key industry challenges in the over $100 billion claims market,” Mick Sawka, investment manager at Morningside, said in a statement.
The money will be used entirely for hiring, Schaedler said, adding the company has otherwise an “all-time low cash burn.”
HOMEE has roughly 85 employees and plans to hit 100 by the end of the year, in part thanks to new hire and Chief Technology Officer Mitch Pirtle.
Pirtle came from Washington, D.C.-based Morning Consult, which recently hit the $1 billion “unicorn” valuation coveted among technology companies. He has a focus on building HOMEE’s development team.
“We want to grow specifically around development,” Schaedler said. “We have a lot more positions out there for top engineering talent. There is a lot of remote workers, but our goal over time — some of them have relocated, and we want to bring that talent to Tampa when we can.”
HOMEE has had a bit of an overhaul the last two years, expanding its business model to go beyond on-demand home repair services and instead work as a middleman of sorts with insurance companies and homeowners, filing claims for bigger ticket items under $25,000.
“Historically, they have written a check to the policyholder and said, ‘Good luck,’” Schaedler said. “Now they push the information digitally to us, so everything is highly efficient. It’s a very high positive customer experience, and because they have a great experience, the customer retention is much higher when they use our service.”
Schaedler estimates the company will look to raise a Series C round in mid to late 2022 for an undisclosed amount to continue growth. The company has raised roughly $50 million since its inception in 2016.
“We’re still in growth mode as we call it — we have a lot to do,” he said. “It’s a huge market, and we want to capture that as much as possible and have a sizable company for our shareholders.”
