crowdstreet111CrowdStreet’s commercial real estate investment platform continues to find success and the Portland-based startup today announced a $3.5 million Series A funding round to help fuel growth.

CrowdStreet CEO Tore Steen.
CrowdStreet CEO Tore Steen.

Rally Ventures led the round, which included participation from seed investors Green Visor Capital, Seven Peaks Ventures and Portland Seed Fund. Total funding to date is $4.8 million.

Founded in 2013, CrowdStreet is an online platform that connects investors to real estate developers or operators looking to raise private capital. Similar to something like Kickstarter, CrowdStreet essentially acts as the middleman and creates direct connections between the two sides that may have previously been restricted.

CrowdStreet allows investors to sort through different real estate opportunities, whether it’s in the senior housing industry or a fast-growing urban development. Each project has been thoroughly vetted before being posted to the platform.

“CrowdStreet has been able to bring institutional quality commercial real estate to investors across all major product type — senior housing, multi-family, office, storage, retail, hospitality — as well as offering both investments in specific projects, as well as funds,” CrowdStreet CEO Tore Steen told GeekWire.

Beyond acting as a marketplace, the startup also recently debuted a white label version of its software platform called Sponsor Direct that gives developers a way to enable their websites for automated direct investment and manage their relationship with investors across the lifetime of an investment. There are already more than 20 customers using the solution.

“The value that CrowdStreet provides extends far beyond simply raising capital,” Bharat Sangani, chairman of Encore Enterprises, Inc., said in a statement. “Through our use of the CrowdStreet platform we’ve grown our investor base, launched a feature rich Encore-branded online investor portal, and transformed our internal investment processes in ways that make our business both more efficient and more rewarding to our investors.”

CrowdStreet, which makes money by charging developers a posting fee, originally started in Bend, Ore. after the passage of the JOBS Act made it easier to crowdfund. The company went through the Founders Pad incubator in Bend before moving its operations to Portland, where it now employs 12 people.

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