Alexandria-based Pinxter's success with its mobile social media platform for shared feedback started with fashion, food and weddings and now its turned to real estate with a new app called Piggy. Piggy simplifies the often confusing and difficult process of realtor references, almost like Yelp but for people wanting to refer friends to real estate agents and lettings professionals in the industry refer each other to potential clients, with the chance of boosting the number of referral fees. On top of the new app, Pinxter has closed a $500,000 round of seed funding from local investors including RedPeg Marketing CEO Brad Nierenberg, Five Star Alliance founder Cal Simmons and former Columbia Capital partner Phil Herget.
"We'd heard a lot about how frustrating and confusing the process could be, even about 90 percent of realtor business comes from clients referring their friends and family" said Pinxter CEO and co-Founder Sergei Dubograev. "Piggy is streamlined process. It just takes a few minutes to do."
With the app, a real estate agent's clients can mark them as a preferred realtor, making it possible to do long-distance referrals quickly and without the process that makes it so difficult according to Dubograev. And because it makes it so easy to get and give referrals, agents can use it to boost their own revenue from referral fees in markets that are nowhere near where they work, and quality referrals are always worth it to realtors he said.The app even arranges the payments between realtors with cards or bank transfers.
The imaginative leap of transforming Pinxter's consumer goods type of product into a useful tool for real estate is part of what made investors line up to put money into the company. The "platform as product" model is a very hot idea right now, and entrepreneurs who can make it work seem to find plenty of willing capital.
"Pinxter provides platforms that connect offline with online experiences and being part of this market on a daily basis allows me to see the need for brands to expand their mobile real estate on their consumers' phones," Brad Nierenberg said. "Pinxter is right at the front of helping them do so."
"We are excited to be part of an exciting company in the early stages and are looking forward to seeing what other markets this platform can help brands connect and reach their consumers," Cal Simmons said.
Piggy isn't the end of the line for Pinxter's plans. Dubograev said that home design and other markets are all set up for down the line as the company uses the money to expand its numbers in the D.C. area, which Dubograev credits for helping Pinxter succeed.
"These things are happening because of our being in D.C. and how the tech community in that market is growing," he said.
Check out the Piggy infographic below to get a better idea of how realtors and people looking for a house can use it to make the whole process smoother.
