The property sales market is booming this year, and today a startup addressing one of homeowners' biggest needs – repair and maintenance services, and especially the stress of fixing breakdowns, announces funding on the heels of strong growth.
Super – who built a business providing repair and maintenance services for electrical and mechanical systems, appliances, and plumbing through a monthly subscription – has completed a $ 50 million growth spurt.
The startup plans to use the funding to expand into new markets, hire more employees, and add more maintenance / repair services and partnerships to its broader home-warranty-per-subscription offering.
CEO Jorey Ramer, who co-founded the company with Ryan Donnelly (VP of Engineering), also said another portion of the investment will be used to improve the AI technology underlying Supers service and pricing plans. More on this below.
The San Francisco-based company is currently active in some of the fastest growing housing markets in the US – Austin, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, San Antonio, and Washington, DC (ironically, not in SF itself) – and it's grown 7x in sales a Series B of $ 20 million since April 2019, when funds were previously raised. Neither actual sales figures nor user figures are disclosed.
This latest Series C has a number of strategic backers pointing to the larger ecosystem of financial and insurance services that are interconnected and used by the average person in the process of owning a home. (In fact, Super seems to be calling itself "Insuretech" these days.)
Led by Wells Fargo Strategic Capital, the banking giant's venture arm, the others in the round included home builder Asahi Kasei, the AAA – Auto Club Group (which also sells insurance), Gaingels and REACH. The last of these is a scale-up service from Second Century Ventures, the mutual fund of the National Association of Realtors. Aquiline Technology Growth, Liberty Mutual Strategic Ventures, Moderne Ventures and the HSB Fund of Munich Re Ventures – all of which invested in Super's previous $ 20 million round in April 2019 – also participated.
The company has now raised a total of $ 80 million and is not disclosing its valuation.
As mentioned earlier, Ramer came up with the idea for Super when he moved to San Francisco himself after selling his previous startup Jumptap – an advertising network acquired by Millennial Media (now part of Verizon through the Verizon acquisition) AOL, just like TechCrunch). He had been a tenant all his adult life, but when he moved to the Bay Area he bought real estate with more than reluctance to look after his new home over the headache of looking after his new home.
"I liked being a tenant," he said in an interview. "You pay a fee and you know what to expect." ("Super" is a reference to the caretakers who take care of the maintenance and repairs in an apartment building and what Super hopes customers will think of their service.)
Interestingly, the path Ramer has taken to fill this void is similar to the challenges Jumptap faced in the advertising technology world: instead of trying to build a services business from scratch, he decided to build an integrated network that tapped a number of small service companies already involved in home maintenance. (The correlation here is that rather than building a first-party giant, the approach is to put a number of online properties together so that people who want to advertise in a variety of places on a network can do so .)
Super has created a kind of marketplace: the service companies and individuals that Super hires to carry out maintenance and repair work are all licensed and use its platform essentially free of charge, and Super processes payment on the basis of calls. For users, the call-outs are part of their monthly plans and include different options depending on the level of service they purchase.
Part of the funding announced today will be used to improve the way these monthly plans work.
Not only are there algorithms Super has developed to determine the prices for its services based on location, size of the house, and other factors, there are also features in the app that subscribers can use to interact with Super to report issues To call maintenance personnel and provide more details about problems for faster and, in some cases, automated problem assessment.
Better technology for more responsive home services has been an interesting area of the market, but it has been largely ignored so far. But as it matures, AR and other breakthroughs in computer vision have definitely helped move this game forward. (And a number of others use this too, including Hover, Nana, Jobber, and more.)
The way the service has scaled – working with contractors means adding more types of coverage is easier than building from scratch – also means Super can add more services to the mix over time .
"The things we would do are things your super would do," said Ramer. "So this can include repairing pipelines, but possibly also cleaning carpets, which can be thought of as maintenance. Painting is another interesting area. It seems like a cosmetic thing, but if you don't paint you risk dry rot. It's preventative too. So if we cover, say, 100% maintenance, you can imagine that this is included as well. "
One area he's unlikely to move to is general contract work, like remodeling a bathroom or kitchen or adding a new room to your loft: the focus seems to stay on the essentials to make your home work.
But apart from expanding the services directly on its own platform, there are potential opportunities for Super to work with partners. AAA, for example, has a remarkable business not only in roadside assistance but also in insurance coverage. Describing Super as "roadside assistance for your home", Ramer points out that selling these side by side is a natural partnership.
Likewise, Wells Fargo is a natural fit as a mortgage lender, providing a way for its customers to get the real estate they are paying off to the bank. This in turn also becomes a kind of insurance for the bank itself as it keeps the houses it finances in better shape.
"Wells Fargo is committed to innovation and we are excited to support a technology-centric platform like Super that will drive the home service market forward," said Matthew Raubacher, managing director of WFSC's Principal Technology Investments Group, in a statement. "The challenges of ongoing repairs and maintenance are hot for every homeowner, and Super provides a comfortable experience for the customer while increasing job visibility for local contractors and businesses. We look forward to you expanding your geographic presence and expanding your product range. "
source https://seapointrealtors.com/2021/08/13/super-raises-50m-to-cover-home-repairs-and-maintenance-via-a-subscription-model-techcrunch/
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