OJO Labs: $62.5 Million Funding And Movoto Acquisition

• OJO Labs recently announced that it has raised $62.5 million in a round of funding

OJO Labs recently announced that it has raised $62.5 million in a round of funding led by Wafra with participation from Breyer Capital, LiveOak Venture Partners, Royal Bank of Canada, and Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures. And the company also revealed that it has acquired Movoto, which is the fastest-growing top 5 residential real estate search site in the United States with nearly 24 million monthly visits.

What does OJO Labs do? OJO Labs is transforming the home buying and selling experience with a fusion of human and machine intelligence for delivering deeply personalized property recommendations and guides home buyers and sellers along their journey.

And by joining forces, the companies are able to offer a seamless experience that provides personalized guidance and insights. Along with guiding consumers throughout their journey, OJO Labs serves as a strategic partner for brokers, agents, and loan officers. Since OJO Labs launched in 2015, it has focused on creating deeply personalized technology and engaging consumer experience. The acquisition of Movoto also enables OJO Labs to scale rapidly and bring its deeply personalized technology to millions of home buyers and sellers. 

According to recent research from OJO Labs, consumers are seeking guidance throughout the homebuying journey: 64% need answers to their questions about the process, 68% value support understanding home preferences/criteria, and 72% need guidance finding a home that is the right fit for them.

Key Quotes:

“The Movoto team is as obsessed with consumer experience as we are at OJO Labs. It is the company’s ability to optimize search based on consumer behavior and engagement that has enabled them to compete with three massive, publicly traded companies while steadily gaining market share since 2018. Movoto’s consumer-first search site combined with OJO Labs’ AI advisor marks a completely new experience that will change the way we buy and sell homes forever.”

– John Berkowitz, CEO and Co-founder of OJO Labs

“Buying and selling a home is complex and high stakes, yet homebuyers are left to navigate much of the journey on their own. We’ve come together to create a solution that guides consumers every step of the way, driving homebuyer and seller readiness and more confident decision making. Just like OJO Labs, our vision is to create a better home journey experience by arming consumers with insight and inspiration whenever they need it. Our greatest strength is our fully optimized real estate search site. Combine that with OJO Labs’ deeply personalized consumer experience and best real estate network in the industry, and you have a scaled end-to-end solution unlike anything that exists on the market.”

– Imtiyaz Haque, CEO of Movoto

“We are excited to support the continued growth of OJO Labs through its transformational acquisition of Movoto. With its world-class management team and innovative approach, OJO Labs is a leader in the ongoing advancement of the residential homebuying experience for the millions of consumers that embark on that journey each year.”\

– Russell Valdez, CIO of Wafra — who joined the board of OJO Labs

“The way people buy and sell homes is changing. This evolution has been expedited by recent events, and the real estate industry is on the cusp of something new in the wake of COVID-19. With a clear vision for the future and the technology to back it up, I believe OJO Labs is poised to be a leader in the next era of the homebuying industry.”

– Jim Breyer, Founder and CEO of Breyer Capital and former Facebook and Walmart board member