Tech startup First.io announced Tuesday it raised $5 million in its Series A funding round.
First.io utilizes artificial intelligence to help real estate agents connect with prospective home sellers ahead of their competition, according to the company.
Chicago-based startup investors, MATH Venture Partners, Nine Four Ventures, and @properties’ co-founders Thad Wong and Mike Golden, led the Series A investment for First.
“First meets three important criteria for our portfolio companies,” said Troy Henikoff, managing director of MATH Venture Partners. “They have a superior management team; they have validated technology that creates major efficiencies in an area where little innovation has occurred; and they have a significant advantage in customer acquisition.”
The company’s machine learning platform analyzes hundreds of data points to provide insights to real estate agents that help them prioritize and facilitate communication with contacts that will lead to revenue. The company said its technology doesn’t deter from human interaction, but encourages it by providing users with a personal assistant to schedule in person meetings.
“First helps agents identify the relationships they should be nurturing, and puts them in the right place at the right time to unlock the latent value of an agent’s network,” said Mike Schneider, founder and CEO of First. “This latest round of funding not only brings us partners with a wealth of expertise and additional, powerful distribution channels. It will also accelerate our development of new innovative products to help top agents leverage industry-leading intelligence to grow their businesses faster than ever."
“First pushes the edge of what can be done with big data in real estate, and we see potential in other verticals as well. We will leverage our significant industry and investor network to help expand First's customer base in a far more efficient manner than most traditional venture investors,” noted Elowe.
