Trust what’s real and detect what’s fake
These days, you can do just about anything online—even visit your doctor. So why do you still need to drive across town just to get someone to notarize a document?
That compelling question spurred co-founders Pat Kinsel and Adam Pase to launch Notarize, a firm that—with the help of Camber Creek—is bringing online document verification to some of the largest companies in the world.
Through Notarize, consumers and businesses can connect with an online notary public 24-7 using a computer, tablet, or smartphone.
Of course, achieving scale meant Notarize needed to work with major businesses and other digital products. That’s why Camber Creek:
- Introduced Notarize to some of the leading real estate groups in the country; six of them soon became customers.
- Invested in the firm’s Series B round and led the Series C.
“Camber Creek has been an amazing partner for us,” Pat says. “From their presence on our board to helping us land major partnerships with leading real estate groups and corporations like Adobe, they’ve been tremendous.”
Now known as Proof, notarization is one of the solutions the company offers. Proof is adding layers of trust to online transactions with products that use a combination of human and digital verification to give all parties assurance. Their software provides an effective counter against the range of tools available to falsify financial records, income, and even identity.
What gets measured gets done. What gets measured more quickly and accurately gets done even better.
That’s the simple yet powerful idea behind Measurabl, a SaaS-based firm founded by Matt Ellis to help corporations more easily track everything from diversity in hiring to energy usage. How did we get involved? Camber Creek had been looking at a number of companies in the ESG space (environmental, social and governance).
The Measurabl platform stood out for its simplicity, ease of use, analytical platform, and robust data capabilities.
With Measurabl, companies can skip tedious, and often manual, spreadsheet tracking. Instead, the platform provides an up-to-date picture of energy usage and other key indicators, plus benchmarks to show how that data compare to national and international standards.
Those are the kind of action-driven numbers that drive real change.
To spur fast growth, Camber Creek worked with Matt and his team on several fronts, including to:
- Demonstrate the system’s effectiveness.
- Lead the Series A round.
- Provide introductions to our network of LPs, who own and manage billions of square feet of office space.
- Assemble a strong board.
“Camber Creek is the blue-chip investor for real estate technology,” Matt says. “They introduced us to major new customers. After they led our Series A, their network became mine.”
When we first met with Matt, the platform had 2 billion square feet of property on their platform. Now they have over 15 billion square feet across 75 countries.
And that’s just the start. As more organizations realize they can’t tell their whole story without quality ESG data, that number will continue to grow. When it does, Measurabl will be there to track what matters most.
Selling a home is painful. Typically, there are several last-minute “fixes” or renovations that will make the home market-ready, optimizing the sale price. However, more often than not, people just want to get their home sold without the headache of finding a contractor or paying the cost of improvements.
After dealing with this problem firsthand, repeat founder Rick Rudman set out to make it easier for individuals to do pre-sale renovations and capture the highest sale price possible for their home. Curbio is obsessed with the idea of making this process hassle–free, unlocking tremendous value for homeowners. This means creating a product that is equal parts technology, financial innovation, and construction, allowing customers to sign the remodel contract, pay at closing, and unlock the full value of their homes.
And it turns out brokers and others in the residential market love the product, too. Partnerships with Curbio allow them to give their customers a differentiated experience while also increasing their top line when the home sells for more.
Camber Creek co-led the Series A round and worked closely with Curbio to build out the team, develop new partnerships with multiple industry leaders, and scale up the business to be one of the 5000 fastest–growing companies in the U.S.
“From the beginning, Camber Creek made it clear they recognized the enormity of the opportunity Curbio is pursuing and how exciting it can be to put more money in the hands of everyday homeowners as they look to sell their homes,” said Rudman. “Camber Creek has been a true partner, and it is clear they are with us for the long haul.”
Paying rent on your own schedule is a beautifully simple concept. We’re glad the team at Flex finally solved this challenge.
Most Americans receive paychecks biweekly while rental payments are due at the beginning of the month. It’s one part of the reason tens of millions of people are one injury, mishap, or accident away from falling behind. For a monthly fee, Flex will pay a renter’s lease payment when due, allowing the renter to repay that amount on a flexible schedule of their choosing over the course of the month. This arrangement guarantees a landlord will receive rent on time and in full while giving tenants financial flexibility. Since Flex functions as a credit line, timely repayment helps a renter build credit. Best of all, Flex’s technology makes the process seamless and frictionless for both landlords and tenants, which has made Flex one of the fastest–growing companies in our portfolio.
“Camber Creek helped me refine the idea for the product,” says CEO Shragie Lichtenstein, “and after introducing me to a number of their limited partners in the multifamily space, we received strong evidence of the types of buildings where Flex would be most attractive. It’s the type of insight that could have taken years of trial and error, but Camber Creek helped us find that fit before they even invested as a standard part of their due diligence process.”
The founders of Bowery Valuation got our attention even before they went to market.
Why? They had the vision, experience and drive to solve one of the costliest delays in real estate financing.
Every day, billions of dollars in real estate deals grind to a halt while lenders wait on appraisals. This includes:
- hiring an appraiser
- scheduling a visit
- waiting days or even weeks for the report
John Meadows, Noah Isaacs, and Cesar Devers, co-founders of Bowery, used a new tech platform to transform the appraisal bottleneck into an efficient process that takes a few hours—not weeks.
We knew this platform could be a game-changer and after meeting John and Noah in 2017, we ran a demo with our network of real estate LPs. They were quick to see the benefits of a software package that generates comps and a thorough appraisal based on input from the appraiser.
Camber Creek took action, leading the seed round, supporting the company with introductions, and serving on the board.
Today, Bowery powers their best-in-class appraisers with cutting-edge software. They’re opening up the appraisal logjam and working with lenders of all sizes—including some of the country’s largest banks.
“Having Camber Creek as a lead investor was transformative for Bowery. Some of their relationships became our earliest, biggest customers,” John says. “They push hard toward big outcomes and continue to be thoughtful partners. It’s made a major impact.”
Moving can be incredibly painful. Not just for tenants, but also for landlords.
Owners need to refresh vacated units while also collecting the proper data and documentation for reporting. This reporting is necessary to accurately budget for upgrades or resolving tenant disputes.
Camber Creek met HappyCo co-founder Jindou Lee early in his quest to solve these challenges. Jindou was so focused on making this painful process simple and making customers happy that he named the company HappyCo. True to character, Jindou tackled this problem with best-in-class software and service while building the largest inspection software company in the multifamily industry, all with a smile on his face.
After years of knowing Jindou and observing HappyCo’s execution, we knew we wanted to lead HappyCo’s Series B so that the company can provide an even broader array of industry-leading products and services.
“My relationship with Camber Creek began years before they invested,” said HappyCo CEO Jindou Lee. “They are amazing people and tremendously valuable partners and board members. They always go above and beyond what they say they are going to do. Who wouldn’t want to work with a team like that?”
Today, HappyCo has data on over 3.5 million multifamily and single-family rental homes, including one out of every eight professionally managed units in the US. HappyCo data is relied upon for approximately 26% of all US sale transactions of multifamily units.