SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Picket, the leading provider of integrated technology and services for residential real estate investing, management, and resident experience, today announced $20 million in Series B financing led by LL Funds. RET Ventures, which led Picket’s Series A round of financing in 2022, is also participating in the Series B round.
With Picket, real estate investors can leverage robust data and analytics to identify, evaluate, acquire, and manage single-family rental (SFR) properties easily across markets. The company will use the funding from this round to accelerate innovation and expand technology-enabled services for investors and rental home residents.
Created by a team of veteran technology and real estate industry leaders, the Picket investing platform analyzes supply and demand dynamics in more than 25 rental markets nationwide and automatically evaluates the investment potential of more than 50 million single-family properties. Properties are ranked according to investor criteria, and each on-demand investment analysis includes rental and sale valuations, modeled expenses and returns, and neighborhood-level data (including school scores, crime rates, population growth, and income growth). Backed by proprietary workflow automation technology, Picket’s realty and property management teams support the entire lifecycle of single-family rental assets to improve operating income for investors and quality of life for rental residents.
Residents of Picket-managed homes currently benefit from a streamlined, fully digital leasing process, smart home technology, online bill pay and work order management, a dedicated resident services team, and a custom mobile app.
LL Funds, the Philadelphia-based firm that specializes in high-growth finance and technology companies, will help propel Picket’s next phase of growth through its Series B investment. Jim Morrissey, LL Funds partner, has joined the Picket board of directors.
“Picket is dedicated to building the industry’s highest-quality residential real estate investing tools and services, and its success is a reflection of that focus,” said Morrissey. “The platform seamlessly integrates data between stages of the investment process to give investors powerful insight into investment opportunities, the acquisition pipeline, and portfolio performance overall. We could not be more excited about the opportunity to partner with this team as they transform the way people invest and live in single-family rental homes.”
Through its end-to-end investing platform, Picket helped a growing roster of clients invest more than $270 million in single-family rentals last year. While the platform has predominantly served institutional clients to date, the company is expanding its reach to individual investors who are poised to benefit from greater access to powerful market data, automated investment analysis, and cash-flowing properties in markets nationwide.
"Picket's growth has been significant in the last 18 months, and the company's ability to rapidly innovate on behalf of single-family investors of every size is unmatched," said Quinten “Q” Shay, co-founder and CEO of Picket. "We're thrilled to be able to offer investors access to advanced data, analysis, and tools that simplify and streamline the real estate investing process, and we look forward to significantly expanding our reach in the months and years ahead."
As the single-family rental sector continues to demonstrate the reliability of its inflation-indexed returns, Picket will continue to innovate on behalf of investors in the space and the residents they ultimately serve.
“We have seen persistent enthusiasm for residential real estate investing throughout the market cycle—especially in the single-family sector,” said Shay. “By offering sophisticated, flexible, and affordable solutions across the entire investment lifecycle, we believe we can help more investors confidently buy and manage rental homes and help more residents realize the exceptional benefits of living in them. We will not be satisfied until we have fundamentally transformed the experience of both.”
About Picket
Picket is the leading full-service single-family rental (“SFR”) platform for investors and rental home residents. Proprietary technology and integrated services enable investors to efficiently deploy capital into the single-family rental sector across multiple markets, manage homes to higher standards, and empower residents to live where they want and love where they live. For more information, please visit www.pickethomes.com.
About LL Funds
LL Funds is focused on investing equity into specialty finance and proptech companies that leverage asset-backed loans to drive growth. LL Funds provides both sources of capital (equity and debt) to support its portfolio companies’ growth and scale objectives. Since inception, across all strategies, LL has generated over $3.4 billion in profits, distributed over $4 billion to investors, and currently manages approximately $2.2 billion for institutional and individual investors. LL Funds is a team of 24 based in Philadelphia, PA. For more information, please visit https://llfunds.com/.
