Spruce announced on Wednesday that it closed $60 million in a Series C fundraise. Zigg Capital led the round, alongside other existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners and Scale Venture Partners.
The latest capital brought total investments for the technology company — which provides title insurance, closing, escrow, and recording services for lending and real estate transactions — to $110 million. It closed its previous Series B round at $29 million in May 2020.
Spruce will use the Series C injection to bolster research and development, hire more team members and expand its digital offerings but specifics around its product roadmap aren’t being shared yet, according to a company spokesperson.
“We’re more excited than ever to work with our innovative partners to build the one-click checkout for real estate — especially as the attention on consumer needs and expectations has surged,” CEO and co-founder Patrick Burns said in a press release.
About 80% of homeowners said technology could make home buying easier, 45% said closing time is the most frustrating part of the process and 48.5% said real estate transactions are outdated, according to a survey Spruce conducted in December 2020.
The New York-based company, founded in 2016, aims to reduce transaction times by up to 25% and closing costs by 20%. While mortgage loan closing times have consistently shortened over the last four months, they sat at 51 days in April, well above the April 2020 average of 42 days, according to a report from ICE Mortgage Technology.
Spruce, which claims it saw 450% annual growth in its business every year since inception, enables deal activity after Federal banking hours and puts its application programming interface directly on the Spruce website.
The company’s latest round of funding falls in line with investor confidence and interest in the proptech sector hitting an all-time high this year, according to a Keefe, Bruyette & Woods report from March.
“Spruce’s platform is central in enabling better, faster, and more affordable real estate transactions,” said Dave Eisenberg, a managing partner at Zigg Capital. “Zigg’s significant investment in Spruce shows not only our confidence in the Spruce team but also in the real estate technology sector at large.”