Real estate technology and alternative finance company Orchard has raised $100 million in a Series D funding round, lifting its valuation above $1 billion and turning it into an overnight unicorn.
New York-based Orchard has raised $255 million in total equity since CEO and co-founder Court Cunningham launched the startup in 2017, according to an announcement on Thursday.
The funding round was led by venture capital firm Accomplice with other repeat participants including FirstMark, Revolution, First American and Juxtapose. Per the company’s press release, a group of new investors also partook. Unicorn is a term popularized in Silicon Valley to describe a company that achieves a valuation of $1 billion or more.
“We are excited to once again back Court and the Orchard team, and as insiders, we are in the best position to lead this round,” Jeff Fagnan, a founding partner of Accomplice, said in a statement. “Over the last four years we have witnessed Orchard’s strong growth and inspired customer focus. We actively seek the best places to concentrate our capital, and we are confident in Orchard’s position as a long-term winner in the space.”
As Inman previously reported, the company serves as a dual-track for consumers who are buying and selling a home at the same time. Through a buy-before-sell guarantee, Orchard guarantees to sell a consumer’s home in 120 days. If Orchard doesn’t sell it, they buy it. The consumer is then able to use the capital promised in the guarantee to buy a new home before the sale of their old one.
Since its start, Orchard has introduced several new tools including Orchard Dashboard, Orchard Insurance, and Concierge — a service that repairs and updates homes before the sales with no upfront costs.
“We’re proud to have built a business that gives the consumer unparallelled convenience, certainty, and control when buying a home.“ Cunningham said in a statement. “We’ve had a year of hyper growth, but at Orchard it’s still day one for transforming residential real estate in favor of the customer. This funding will allow Orchard to continue to innovate for our customers and expand geographically to offer our services to millions more homeowners across the country.”
In addition to its headquarters in New York City, Orchard is available to consumers in Colorado, Georgia, Texas, North Carolina, Maryland and Virginia. Per the release, in 2022, Orchard plans on expanding to four new market.
