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Ryan Serhant is not your average starter. This became clear when a Netflix staff filmed our interviews, which is not surprisingly rare on Term Sheet. But as I learned while trying not to be distracted by the drone flying over the window of Serhant’s office taking a great shot, its popularity is a feature, not a flaw.
You probably recognize Serhant’s name from Million Dollar Listing or his new Netflix show, Owning Manhattan. Or maybe you’ve bought a home from the man or one of his fast-growing army, all operating under his famous real estate brand, it is closed sold six houses in Manhattan last year, according to The Real Deal. (Serhant tells me they open a new market about every 14 days.)
But now, Serhant wants to position himself as a technology entrepreneur, raising $45 million from respected New York companies Camber Creek and Left Lane Capital and launching a program called S.MPLE, designed to help businesses manage their business.
Most startups get famous for the success of their products, but from its high-end headquarters in SoHo, which greets visitors with a large S symbol inside the front door, Serhant makes a convincing case for why the opposite may be true. .
Through his reality shows and millions of followers, Serhant helped pioneer a new way of selling real estate, where buyers find buyers through virality instead of posting ads in newspapers and Craigslist. Its average employee is 20 years younger than the industry average. “They only know their business through social media,” he tells me. The first lead generator? LinkedIn.
Serhant describes S.MPLE as “Instacart to vendors” (See, he’s one of you.) It wasn’t his first foray into space technology, including the now-defunct platform UNIVERS and a real-time video editing software called Spaces, which never got picked up. leaving with his assistants. He said: “I used to call them wrong.” “I had to do this.”
S.MPLE came as a learning from its second experiment—that people want to spend less time on their photos, not more. The app allows advertisers to customize their sales channels, from listings to communications. Instead of your SaaS product, the real technology — like Serhant’s rental business — is its distribution channel. Every aspect of his work, from social media to reality TV to real estate sales – he serves as a driving force behind many businesses. “Our customer acquisition cost is close to zero,” he tells me. “If most of your money is going into Meta ad or figuring out how to get a product and do distribution, it’s a tough competition.”
Serhant says that he has been profitable since the beginning and that he is bringing in investors because of the support he can provide from the joint venture, with Left Lane Capital which is known to focus on consumers and Camber Creek which focuses on technology. Both companies have realized “Serhant’s value,” as Left Lane Capital’s Harley Miller describes it. “It’s made investors like us wake up to the power of this distribution and how much of a value driver and unique competition it can be,” Miller tells me.
Jeffrey Berman, a partner at Camber Creek, says the most successful companies in his field have “broken the rules” of the business-to-business-to-consumer model. They point to rental payment platform Flex, which works with multi-family landlords who can sell to multiple tenants. “It’s not apples to apples with the idea of having a personality that’s recognizable to people, but it’s the same (market) skill at a lower price,” he says.
Currently, Serhant is rolling out S.MPLE to retailers throughout his company and plans to expand to other apparel. His programming ambitions may not exceed his Netflix fame anytime soon, but this can only help him. “He’s not just a word-unquote famous broker,” Berman tells me. “He’s a tech CEO, and he’s running a great company at that.”
Leo Schwartz
Twitter: @leomschwartz
Email: leo.schwartz@fortune.com
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GOOD WORKS
– An elephantThe London-based digital storage and real estate platform raised $14 million ($17.8 million) in Series B funding. The opinion of the company Goodwater Capital led the round and was joined by those who were already there Aviva, Ascension Ventures, Love Venturesand McPike Family Office.
– Radiuma precision radiology specialist in Paris, raised $13 million in seed funding. Newfund and Dates they circled and joined Founders Future, Galion.exeand European EIC funds.
– Akhetonicsthe Berlin-based manufacturer of mechanical devices, raised €6 million ($6.3 million). Matterwave Ventures led the round and joined Total value of 468 shares, Bavaria capitaland existing investors Runa Capital, Founders of the Rheingauand others.
PRIVATE EQUITY
– ABC Technologiespowered by Apollo Global Managementagreed to find TI Fluid SystemsOxford, England-based vehicle thermal solutions and fluid systems developer, about £1 billion ($1.3 billion).
– Verdane he got a small part It buildsStockholm’s joint venture trading platform, for €26 million ($27.5 million).
– Digpowered by Marlin Equity Partnersfound tmc3 isLeeds, England-based cybersecurity solutions provider. Financial terms were not disclosed.
OUT
– Argos Wityu found NoticeA dry bakery manufacturer from Andezeno, Italy Cerea Partners and CAPZA. Financial terms were not disclosed.
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