New York-based Bowery Valuation is an up-and-coming startup that has developed software empowering appraisers with a cloud-based commercial appraisal writing software that speeds up the process of analyzing applications. Earlier this month, Bowery Valuation raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Builders VC. Navitas Capital, Camber Creek, Fika Ventures, and Corigin Ventures also participated in this round. So far, Bowery Valuation has raised $17 million in total funding.
With this round of funding, Bowery Valuation is going to accelerate the hiring of its engineering and appraisal talent. And the company will be expanding its presence geographically. And Bowery is planning to expand its technology capabilities and product offerings to shorten turnaround times and offer innovative solutions for continuing to modernize and streamline the appraisal process.
Bowery is led by co-CEOs Noah Isaacs and John Meadows. The two of them started the company after recognizing that the commercial real estate appraisal process is broken. Bowery’s provides an end-to-end software solution for commercial real estate appraisals that utilizes public record integration, a mobile inspection app, natural language generation, and exhaustive databasing. As a result, Bowery is able to create cheaper and more accurate reports twice as fast as the industry average.
Prior to launching Bowery, Isaacs and Meadows previously spent several years appraising at one of the largest independent appraisal firms in the country. Isaacs said that they were spending 50-60% of their time on busy work such as manual data entry such as copying and pasting. And Meadows explained that they knew there was a better way to appraise and will continue their mission of creating efficiencies in the process with this funding round.
“Bowery brings a whole new way of thinking around appraisals and efficiency when it comes to using technology in the antiquated world of real estate valuation. Builders VC is thrilled to be investing in this team and company, applying a modern mindset and technology to an outdated industry,” added Builders VC general partner and lead investor Jim Kim.
Currently, the average commercial real estate appraisal takes three weeks to deliver and it is considered one of the largest bottlenecks in the lending process. Due to manual reporting, appraisals are often filled with errors and inconsistencies. And valuable data often gets buried in PDFs filled with hundreds of pages.
Bowery Valuation’s co-founder and CTO Cesar Devers said that it has “exciting and validating” watching their engineering team bringing their “dream software to life.” And he pointed out that the company’s team of exceptional appraisers uses that software to product reports that surpass the industry standard.
In the past year, Bowery tripled its client base, revenue, and headcount. And the company valued more than $3 billion in commercial real estate. Now Bowery is working extensively with top-tier lenders and is operating in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania.
