Finnish startup Linear raises €1.1M to digitalize the real estate business
Linear, a company focusing on the digitalization of real estate brokerage, has closed €1.1 million in seed funding. The round was led by Innovestor Ventures (FIN), joined by institutional and private investors as well as the company’s previous backer, Superhero Capital (FIN). Linear will use the latest funding round on future growth and expansion to new markets.
Linear Oy, founded in 2018, offers a digital ecosystem that is driven by artificial intelligence and machine learning to facilitate the housing trade. The services benefit both private sellers and professional realtors.
Linear offers realtors a comprehensive SaaS (Software as a Service) automation tool for managing the sales process and acquiring new customers. Furthermore, realtors have access to a wide range of digital marketing tools, such as virtual apartment tours and virtual interior designs. Realtors can use Linear to minimize the amount of manual work, allowing them to focus solely on the sales process. This increases the annual sales capacity of realtors significantly.
To date, Linear has over 600 registered realtors as users from the majority of Finland’s largest realtor agencies.
For private home sellers, Linear provides an integrated platform with all the necessary tools to sell homes independently. For a flat fee, private sellers get AI-driven pricing suggestions, support in preparing legal documents, marketing materials and a list of the most efficient realtors in their own area, if they decide to turn to professional sales support.
The development of the real estate sector has recently focused heavily on digital services and concepts that facilitate the sale of a house listing without a realtor. Miro Eriksson, CEO at Linear, believes realtors will continue to play an important role in the real estate selling process.
“While many choose to sell their homes independently, from consumer to consumer, we think that realtors continue to have a solid position in the market – and we are happy to provide them with a new solution to make their job easier and more efficient. We are proud and humble to successfully close this investment round, giving us confidence to continue developing our products and services”, Eriksson says.
“We were able to quickly build conviction around Linear’s ambitious team and their vision for applying tech to develop the home selling market. Moreover, in this market, we believe the Human+Machine approach will be a successful formula. Over a short period of time, the company has validated its offering and is now ready to scale”, says Innovestor’s Wilhelm Lindholm.
This was Superhero Capital’s follow-on investment into the company, as the Helsinki-based venture capital firm made their initial investment in Linear’s pre-seed round in 2019.
“We’ve seen multiple new home exchange services entering the market over a short time. Some of them are trying to reform the housing trade by removing professional realtors from the equation. We became excited about Linear because their service benefits realtors as well, making their job easier and more efficient. The fact that more than 600 realtors have already used Linear's services speaks for itself”, says Jakob Storå, Founding Partner at Superhero Capital.
Although Linear’s platform was launched in 2019, the startup has shown strong growth as their revenue has increased by 14 percent month-over-month during the first half of 2020.
Contact
Miro Eriksson, CEO Linear
miro@linear.fi
044 5801656
Linear
Founded in 2018, Linear connects realtors, private sellers and buyers to the same platform, offering all parties new digital features for buying and selling homes. The goal of Linear's goal is to provide a better experience for all parties involved in selling a listing. Linear employs 19 people and provides high-quality digital services worldwide to companies working in the real estate and interior design industry.