Washington, October 13th / PRNewswire / -- The real estate investment platform driven by AI Mogul announced today that it has completed a round of Series A financing of $15.5 million, led by Draper Associates, which is 55% higher than its initial target of $10 million. To date, Mogul has raised a total of over $23.6 million in financing. This Series A financing has valued the company at $126 million.
Mogul indicates that the company has now achieved positive cash flow and originally had no immediate plans for financing. However, strong proactive approaches from well-known venture capitalists prompted the company to advance this round of financing. Mogul The new funds will be used to expand the AI infrastructure and organizational structure, broaden the range of housing options, and create new sources of revenue. A considerable portion of the funds will be allocated to recruitment, covering positions in engineering, data science, and supply chain management.
Although the investment team of Mogul is still leading the due diligence process, the company has utilized AI to expand its supply-side business, promoting supply operations, targeted deployment, performance analysis, and continuous asset monitoring. The company claims that this has allowed them to expand their asset scale to over 150 locations with only 4 team members dedicated to the supply side. In the supply workflow, Mogul has reduced manual workload by 89% and shortened the time required for processing a single property from 18 hours to 2 hours.
This technology-driven approach reflects the mission of the company from its inception: to reshape an industry that is still dominated by manual processes. Mogul Co-founders Alex Blackwood and Joey Gumataotao were once investors in Goldman Sachs' real estate investment group. After witnessing firsthand how outdated real estate investing methods remained, they left Wall Street to rebuild this model from scratch.
Mogul was established in 2022, combining institutional-level underwriting with technology-enabled operations and AI to enable ordinary investors to access carefully selected residential real estate opportunities that were previously only available to institutions. Through this platform, users can invest in individual properties and receive monthly distributions based on their holdings.
Since its launch, Mogul has achieved significant scale and investor participation, including:
- Facilitated real estate investments exceeding $110 million
- Acquired more than 150 properties across the United States
- Over 50,000 investors have registered.
- 80% repeat investment rate
- Target internal rate of return of 12% to 20%
This round of financing took place against the backdrop of the rapid growth of Mogul. The company stated that its revenue is expected to increase by 14.5 times from 2024 to 2025, with a year-on-year increase of 5.6 times, and the number of customers is expected to quadruple, while the team size remains at only 11 people. Mogul currently expects its annualized revenue to reach $9 million by the end of this year and plans to expand to $60 million within 18 months after this round of financing. The company also recently acquired the domain name Mogul.com for $1.3 million, reflecting its ambition to build a landmark platform for real estate investment.
"This round of Series A financing has validated our judgment: the real estate industry is ready for an upgrade driven by AI. This industry is full of room for innovation and presents a trillion-dollar market opportunity," said Mogul, CEO and co-founder of Alex Blackwood. "This platform was initially just a way for me and Joey to invest in quality real estate without hassle, and I am proud to say that I am still a heavy user of this platform today. We are usually the first and second investors in each property; however, in the past three months, most assets have been sold out within two hours, so there have been some projects I missed due to not reacting fast enough. As a platform, we are already unique, and this funding gives us the ability to redefine the broader real estate industry. Looking to the future, our vision is to create a vertically integrated real estate ecosystem that covers the entire lifecycle of assets. By unifying these layers, Mogul can become the defining infrastructure of this industry. In ten years, when you think of real estate, Mogul will be the first word that comes to your mind."
"Real estate has long been one of the most important assets for wealth accumulation in the United States, but access to such investment strategies has largely been limited to institutions," said Joey Gumataotao, co-founder of Mogul. "I was involved in building Goldman Sachs' single-family rental platform, which grew from scratch to a scale of one billion dollars in less than a year. I witnessed firsthand the potential of this asset class when the right technology and systems were applied. This round of Series A financing will significantly enhance our infrastructure, allowing us to continue to improve as we expand. As the company grows, our investment logic, processes, and screening criteria will only become stronger. This funding will help us to expand the platform and asset portfolio while maintaining the precision and discipline that investors expect."
Important investors in this round include the founder of Draper Associates, as well as the renowned Silicon Valley venture capital firm Tim Draper. As an early seed round investor and active supporter of Mogul, Draper has made investments in the early stages of companies such as Tesla, SpaceX, Coinbase, and Robinhood. BlueChew, co-founder and CEO Stephen Sullivan, wrote the largest check in this round and brought first-hand experience in building and expanding consumer-facing businesses. Other investors include Draper Dragon, Avalanche Blizzard Fund, Jason Calacanis's subsidiaries LAUNCH, Venture Togethers, and Gaingels, as well as other strategic angel investors from several top technology and insurtech companies.
"We made an investment during the pre-seed phase of Mogul, because Alex and Joey have top-tier institutional backgrounds and possess bold visions for a fundamentally different real estate investment model," said Tim Draper, founder of Draper Associates. "In May of this year, Alex came to our summit as one of our best-performing investment portfolios to share their business progress. Seeing the continued strength of their business and the scale that their team was building, our confidence grew even more. By the end of the event, I knew we had to lead this round of Series A financing. Mogul is truly a 'game-changer,' with investor retention, sustained growth, and solid execution moving forward. This company has the potential to become the defining model for the next generation of real estate investments."
“Mogul is our largest external startup investment to date, as it’s clear that Alex and Joey possess truly disruptive business models and are set to become the number one brands in their respective categories very soon. After several months of discussions with Alex, this decision became almost inevitable,” said Stephen Sullivan, co-founder and CEO of BlueChew / dgp.com. “When I first met Alex and Joey, I was excited by their grand vision for the future of real estate investing; but when they showed me the early results of their paid marketing efforts through Google Search, I realized that it was only a matter of time before the company would experience rapid growth through word-of-mouth. I’m truly thrilled for them!”
About Mogul
Mogul is a real estate investment platform created by real estate investors and driven by real estate investors themselves. Founded in 2022, the company was established by former members of Goldman Sachs' real estate investment group, Alex Blackwood and Joey Gumataotao. It helps individuals invest in individual properties and build diversified single-family rental portfolios, making residential real estate more accessible to a wider range of investors. By combining institutional-level underwriting with the supply infrastructure driven by AI, asset management, and investor operations, Mogul provides an efficient and transparent investment experience. The company is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and has offices in New York, working to create an ecosystem that drives future real estate investments. For more information and to start building your portfolio, please visit Mogul.com.
