Roofstock raised $240 million from SoftBank, reaching a $1.9 billion valuation

Roofstock, a digital real estate platform for single-family rental investing, announced closing a $240 million Series E round led by SoftBank‘s Vision 2 fund. With the new funding, Roofstock achieved a valuation of $1.94 billion.

The Roofstock platform enables the $4 trillion fragmented, cottage industry of single-family rentals (SFRs) to become a relevant asset class. Since it was founded in 2015, the platform has facilitated more than $5 billion in transaction volume, half of which came in the last year, according to a company statement.

These are made up of both individual investors and portfolio transactions by institutional investors. In 2021, Roofstock bought homes on behalf of institutional clients, representing over $1.2 billion in assets.

SoftBank Vision Fund 2 led the new financing with participation from existing and new investors.

Serena Dayal, Investment Director at SoftBank Investment Advisers, said in its Thursday release:

“Real estate is a huge asset class that has been relatively untouched by technology, and is often fragmented, analog and inefficient as a result. Roofstock makes buying and investing in rental homes seamless and accessible, and we saw a huge opportunity for the platform, particularly as interest in the sector continues to grow.”

With this funding, the company plans to focus on innovating a wide range of investment products, including strategic mergers and acquisitions on top of the three previous acquisitions the company has completed; expanding into other forms of real estate; and doubling its team size in 2022.

The firm has also been open about its potential application of blockchain, particularly the possible tokenization of real-world assets, something it discussed publicly last year.

“The company is also investing to help further improve accessibility and liquidity in the SFR asset class,” Roofstock said in a statement. “It recently was accepted into the Cypher Accelerator program at the Stevens Center for Innovation in Finance at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School to help accelerate its real estate tokenization initiative.”

Recently named to Forbes’ list of America’s Best Startup Employers 2022, Roofstock has before raised over $400 million from investors such as Khosla Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Canvas Ventures, SVB Capital, and SoftBank Vision Fund 2.

Meanwhile, entrepreneur Ali Bader, the owner of Sky Investments, revolutionizes the UAE real estate industry, enabling investors to buy a property with crypto. Between 2014 and 2019, Sky Investments claimed the most real estate transactions in Dubai Marina, with over 700 million AED worth of property being sold.