Lev, a New York-based online commercial real estate financing platform, has secured $170m in debt and series B equity funding from investors including real estate manager JLL and financial services firms Capital One and Citi to simplify commercial real estate transactions.
Founded in 2019, Lev provides a marketplace for commercial real estate financing, giving businesses access to lenders and streamlining what is traditionally a clunky process. It said it would be using the capital to boost its product offerings, recruit talent across the company and invest in research and development.
The company claims it closed $1bn of commercial real estate mortgages last year, having grown 10-fold year on year.
Parker89 and Cross River Digital Ventures co-led the $70m equity portion of the round and were backed by Canaan Partners, NFX, Animo Ventures, StepStone Group and Blitzscaling Ventures. Cross River’s Strategic Direct Lending Group provided $100m in debt financing in addition to the equity.
JLL and Capital One invested through their subsidiaries JLL Spark and Capital One Ventures, while Citi took part via its Citi Ventures and Citi SPRINT units.
Lev’s chief executive, Yaakov Zar, said: “Commercial real estate is one of the largest industries on the planet, and has somehow completely resisted the fintech revolution that has taken over virtually every other industry in the past decade.
“We have been blessed with the right team, building the right products in a gigantic industry and that is the driver behind our continued growth.”
JLL Spark, Canaan Partners, NFX and Animo Ventures had all taken part in Lev’s $30m series A round in July last year, which was led by Greenspring and featured Ludlow Ventures and First American Financial.
The company’s $10m seed round in February last year was also provided by JLL Spark, Canaan Partners, Animo Ventures, NFX and Ludlow Ventures.
Citi Ventures and JLL Spark both also invested in a SoftBank-led $240m series E round for Roofstock, a residential real estate marketplace, last month.
Image courtesy of Lev
