The End of Pen & Paper Commercial Real Estate Sales
Partner Taylor Greene discusses LHV’s investment in CREXi
So, what is CREXi?
CREXi stands for “Commercial Real Estate Exchange, Inc.” It’s a platform that lets users list and search properties, keep track of acquisitions, and centralize all of their documentation and due diligence. Basically, it makes high-level real estate transactions easy and efficient so there’s much less time and effort and back-and forth involved.
And how did the team hear about it?
Clark Landry is the co-founder of Shift, which is in LHV’s portfolio. He knows Mike [DeGiorgio], Ben Widhelm, and Luke Morris, three of the CREXi co-founders, and made the introduction because he thought it might be a good fit for us.
Why commercial real estate?
I’m drawn to industries that are still using pen, paper, and fax machine in their day-to-day because they haven’t been transformed by technology yet; it’s pretty exciting to see how tech can positively change an entire sector and spark real growth. Until we met the CREXi team, we hadn’t seen great technology applied to solving the everyday challenges that commercial real estate brokers face. We met the company almost a year prior to investing, which gave us time to watch the company progress and see the entrepreneurs execute on the things they promised to execute on. That’s exactly what happened here — the founders did what they said they’d do.
And what problems with commercial real estate transactions is CREXi solving?
I’ve been looking at tech-enabled real estate businesses for quite some time, but I had only really seen solutions geared towards disintermediating real estate brokers — they would attempt to cut out the middleman, but didn’t really offer much else. Instead, I was looking for a platform that made the brokers more efficient — one they could use to streamline their business and enable smoother transactions for everyone. CREXi was the only platform I saw delivering real value.
I think it’s because both Mike and Luke came from auction.com, so they have real industry experience and understand the need for a full-stack solution that serves the three major commercial real estate stakeholders: brokers, buyers, and sellers. Their domain expertise combined with Ben’s background in building tools and exchanges made this opportunity even more compelling.
Why did you say yes and invest in CREXi? What could other founders learn from them?
One of the benefits of having first seen this company eleven months ago is that it allowed us to get a better feel for the evolution of the business, to watch the company progress, and to evaluate the tenacity of the founding team. The world is full of “no”s from VCs, but we love the entrepreneurs who don’t quit and come back to turn our “no” into a “yes”. Some of our best investments have turned out that way. Mike executed on the things he promised to execute on and built out what he said he was going to create from the get go, so we had no questions about his resolve. The founders did exactly what they said they’d do, and their perseverance and vision made it easy to say yes to CREXi.
Read more about Taylor Greene and the rest of the LHV team, and check out other Lerer Hippeau investments.
