SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Blooma, the leading AI-powered digital underwriting platform for commercial real estate (CRE), today announced the close of a $15 million Series A investment round. Canapi Ventures led the round with participation from existing investor Nyca Partners. The Series A funding will be used to drive continued execution of Blooma’s product roadmap and support the hiring of key personnel to enable Blooma to better serve its quickly-growing base of commercial bank, private bank and broker customers in the CRE segment.
Founded in 2018, Blooma brings together best-in-class technology and a seamless workflow to significantly improve loan origination and portfolio monitoring processes for operators in the CRE space. On the loan origination side, Blooma uses optical character recognition (OCR) technology to extract information from relevant documents to automate the deal evaluation process and empower users to make informed investment decisions quickly. The origination solution produces fast and accurate sales and income valuations based on intelligent market comparables and expense information. The platform is highly flexible and can be adapted to meet any lender’s existing processes or systems.
Blooma also offers CRE portfolio management intelligence that automates ongoing loan monitoring, auditing, stress testing and borrower analyses. By pulling in hundreds of data points for each loan, portfolios are continuously screened according to a rating system configured and controlled by the customer. Blooma connects via API to real-time market data sources that provide early indicators of risk at the loan and portfolio level, resulting in lower loan servicing costs and enhanced visibility into the portfolio.
Shayne Skaff, CEO of Blooma, said, “When we founded Blooma, we brought together some of the most talented technologists and lenders in the industry to create a solution that doesn’t just automate the lending process, but makes it smarter and more enjoyable. Blooma is a tool initially built for CRE lenders by CRE lenders – that’s part of our secret sauce. Since our launch, we have expanded our customer base to include brokers and asset managers as well. Now, with Canapi, we’ve found a partner who can help us make a real impact in an industry in desperate need of our solution.”
Blooma has already demonstrated an impressive ability to generate value for customers. Lenders on the system have reduced loan origination time by up to 75%, enabled 50% more transactions and achieved 4x reductions in origination and servicing costs. To date, the platform has analyzed over $12 billion in deals in the last 12 months and serves multiple commercial banks, private banks and brokers, including C3 Bank, Bank of Southern California and CBRE. Blooma has a clear path to continued growth as it expands its feature set to focus on innovating away key pain points in the ~$14 trillion U.S. commercial lending space.
Walker Forehand, Partner at Canapi Ventures and recent addition to the Blooma board, said, “Blooma’s technology is purposely designed for the CRE segment. With core competencies in extracting valuation, rent roll and other key financial data, Blooma is a force multiplier for CRE lenders, many of whom are constrained not by deal flow but by their inability to efficiently evaluate new opportunities and monitor existing portfolios. During diligence, we found that many of our LPs have been feeling this pain acutely, and we were extremely encouraged by the consistent positive reactions our banks have had to Blooma’s platform. We couldn’t be more excited to join Shayne and the rest of the Blooma team as they embark on this exciting new chapter of growth.”
About Blooma
Blooma is a San Diego, CA-based commercial real estate intelligence platform. Blooma conducts the science of commercial real estate underwriting so that lenders and mortgage brokers can focus on the art. Blooma allows underwriters and originators to spend less time reading documents and spreading financials, and more time making strategic decisions and closing the CRE transactions that make an impact in our neighborhoods and on our world. https://blooma.ai/
About Canapi Ventures
Canapi Ventures is a venture capital firm investing in early to growth-stage fintech companies. Our partners have been at the forefront of financial services innovation as operators, investors, bankers, advisors, and regulators. Our venture capital model connects high-quality fintech companies to our extensive network of banks and strategic partners. Canapi Ventures is advised by CenterHarbor Advisors and Canapi Advisors, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Live Oak Bancshares, Inc. (Nasdaq: LOB). For more information, visit http://www.canapi.com.