Dallas Residential Real Estate Startup Nada Raises $1.07M on Republic—the Max Funding Amount

Last July, we introduced you to Nada, a fairly new startup on the scene that plans to disrupt the residential real estate model for buying and selling a home.

The Dallas-based team launched in late 2018, raised around $800K from private and institutional investors, and quickly garnered traction for its all-in-one online solution that’s an alternative to the traditional commission structure for selling a home. The startup’s simple premise: Pay nothing.

Pay zero, zilch, nada to sell your home

With new services in the pipeline and record revenue coming in, Nada was ready to raise more funding. That led to a campaign on Republic, an investment platform that allows early-stage startups to raise up to $1.07 million from anyone—friends, family, fans, and the general public—using regulation crowdfunding.

On June 17, 2020, Nada launched on Republic. By June 24, it had already raised 100 percent of its fundraising goal. But the campaign didn’t stop there.

By March 2, 2021, Nada raised $1.07 million—the maximum amount allowed by the SEC for the public equity offering, with only 59 days remaining for the campaign. The funding comes from 2,733 public investors on Republic, who joined the team as equity stakeholders. This means Nada is now primarily backed by public investors, rather than institutional or private investors.

John Green

To Co-Founder and CEO John Green, it’s a “tremendous achievement,” one that exemplifies a testament to Nada’s mission to “unlock home equity and make real estate wealth more accessible.”

He says Nada is the first Dallas-based company to raise the maximum on Republic—and believes he and his team are the first Dallas-based company to hit this mark across any equity platform under regulation crowdfunding securities exemption.

“Nada is a vehicle with the purpose of unlocking home equity and making real estate wealth more accessible for everyone,” he wrote on Republic. “This can only be achieved through a community. Today is a major step toward building that community.”

Green told Dallas Innovates Nada will be deploying the new capital to continue developing its proprietary technology, which provides a complete real estate asset management platform for homeowners and real estate investors. The team also wants to keep expanding into new markets in Texas, Florida, Arizona, and Tennessee, as well as invest in growing its in-house finance team, Nada Loans.

To help achieve its goals for the year, Green says Nada has joined Texas-based Capital Factory Ventures and is finalizing terms to enter into a joint-venture with an innovative real estate investment company. With the real estate partnership, Nada plans to release a new real estate investment product that Green is “most excited about.”

“Nada will continue our mission to unlock homeowner equity and make real estate wealth more accessible through market expansion and the release of new financial products,” he says. “I cannot share too much yet, but I am thrilled to announce that the first investment product we will be focused on promoting our very own Dallas market. Stay tuned.”

It’s also major news for Dallas, which got a boost from Republic in November when the platform launched its cities program here.

Republic Cities is a program that chooses high growth, up-and-coming cities to drive fundraising for companies built by their own communities. Republic Cities Dallas aimed to connect with the local startup community while highlighting the companies that are raising on Republic.

Part of that effort meant educating Dallas on Republic’s online fundraising, especially considering the team had facilitated more than $200 million in over 250 companies at the time of the cities launch. At the crux of the platform is getting the word out that startups can raise up to $1.07 million, and the next year $5 million, from anyone and everyone.

The company believes it’s a great option for many, and “certainly more attractive than using credit cards or predatory short-term high APR loans,” its team says. It certainly paid off for Nada.

The mission behind the Dallas-based real estate startup is as simple as it sounds: Sell your home online, pay nada.

Unlike most of the industry, Nada has integrated all services—realty, mortgage, insurance, escrow—into a single digital solution. In doing so, a real estate transaction is completely transformed into a complete homeowner service relationship. It’s also a more affordable and less stressful experience for both the buyer and the seller. (You can read more about how it works here).

Green compares what Nada does to Carvana for the auto industry. Customers are able to search, tour, purchase, finance, insure, and settle on their home—and do it all online. When the pandemic hit, the team quickly pivoted from in-person home tours to video, from traditional open houses to Facebook and Instagram live events, and from in-person closings to electronic and mobile paperwork.

As COVID continues, that trajectory could continue.

“From a greater industry perspective, I believe that the impact from COVID-19 will result in an accelerated change to consumer behavior and breaking down barriers to enable a more digital home buying and selling experience across multiple sectors,” Green previously told us. “We’re proud to be able to serve our community today and help folks unlock more of their equity through a low-stress process.”