Toronto-based Doormat, which provides real-estate legal services to facilitate the closing of property purchases and sales, has raised $1.25 million CAD in pre-seed funding.
Alate Partners led the round with participation from The LegalTech Fund and Gambit Partners. Several angel investors also contributed, including former professional hockey player Brayden Irwin, Loopio co-founder Matt York, Creative Niche founder Mandy Gilbert, former Shopify vice-presidents Brandon Chu and Louis Kearns, as well as Willful CEO and co-founder Erin Bury, who joined Doormat as an advisor in March.
Transactions made through Doormat also receive support from the startup’s lawyer and client support team.
According to Doormat, this capital will help grow its team and expand the company’s presence throughout Ontario and beyond.
Doormat is the brainchild of software engineer Robert Saunders, who faced an “antiquated” experience in the property-closing process when he bought his condo.
As a first time home buyer, Saunders said he had to go through endless email chains and was confused by unclear pricing. Traditional real-estate closing services, he claimed, made it difficult to track the state of the transaction in real time, predict the cost of closing services, or monitor documents and communications related to the deal.
“When I purchased my first property, I wasn’t aware that I needed a real-estate lawyer, and once I went through the lengthy process of finding one, I was confused and uncertain about the entire thing,” Saunders said.
With the goal of improving the property closing experience for both buyers and sellers, Saunders set out to build Doormat in 2022. In this mission, he brought on real-estate lawyer Benjamin Berry and entrepreneur Joel Fox as co-founders.
RELATED: RealSage secures $2.1 million CAD to help multi-family rental managers make better decisions with AI
Doormat’s online platform offers a personalized experience where buyers and sellers can communicate and complete their real-estate transactions. It is meant to bring simplicity to the traditionally complex processes in real-estate legal services, designed to help users manage the legal services involved in the closing through one platform.
According to Doormat, every single property transaction made through its platform will also receive support from the startup’s lawyer and client support team. Its lawyers operate under a partner law firm called Doormat Law.
Doormat, which is currently available in Ontario, said this funding will support its plans to expand into British Columbia and Alberta. The startup also intends to hire five to ten people in the next year for roles in engineering, client support, and real-estate law. Doormat currently has a team of four people.
Featured image courtesy Doormat.