Miami — Pulppo, a ‘proptech’ headquartered in Mexico, on Monday announced the close of a $1.7 million pre-seed funding round led by Latitud, with the participation of Newtopia and founders and senior management from Rappi, Kavak and HiHab.
“While most startups are trying to get rid of the broker, we’re trying to empower them and make them the best in their industry,” said Mathias Gath, co-founder and CEO of Pulppo.
The company serves as an online broker and a one-stop-shop in terms of everything a broker has to manage, from property valuations to home visits. The tech also enables sellers to know how their home is doing while on the market, so the owners can have precise numbers that they can use to inform pricing increases or decreases.
“When you’re selling your home, you don’t have marketing metrics, so you have no idea how well your home is performing,” said Gath.
Most proptech startups that we see today help the underserved get access to credit, or simply target a lower-end market, but Pulppo has decided to work differently. They target homes worth more than $200,000.
“We target high-end customers who are used to receiving services with high expectations,” said Gath.
The company makes money by splitting the broker’s fee, which otherwise Pulppo is free to use.
To date, the company has 12 full-time employees and several job openings. Pulppo plans to use the money from this round to continue improving their product, as well as expand to four cities in Mexico. While the founders are originally from Argentina, they moved to Mexico to launch Pulppo.
The Backstory
Gath and Agustin Iglesias launched Pulppo’s MVP in October 2021, and are officially launching the product today.
“We started with just 20 agents, and now we have more than 30 on the waitlist,” said Gath.
Gath was a real estate developer for 15 years, and experienced several of the pain points that Pulppo now solves. And prior to launching Pulppo, Iglesias sold his real estate company to Quinto Andar, so it’s fair to say that the duo have a lot of real estate experience.
Today, “Agents feel like they are giving a cut of their work [to a broker] and all they have behind them is a brand that doesn’t do anything,” Gath said. But with Pulppo, agents can be given tech tools that help them succeed in the sales process.
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