2021 Letter from CEO, Andrew Luong
Friends, family & community,
As we approach 2022, I find myself reflecting on the past year and the progress we’ve made.
In 2021, we’ve continued to improve Doorvest, working towards a frictionless platform for financial security with each iteration.
We kicked off the year by announcing our $2.5 million seed round led by one of our earliest supporters Mucker Capital, an early-stage venture firm that has invested in companies such as Honey, Outer, and ServiceTitan. We used these funds to continue building out our departments, and increase our transaction volume, serving more customers each month.
Unfortunately, we had large obstacles in February when winter storm Uri hit Texas, causing over $195 billion in damages. Among those affected were several Doorvest residents, employees, partners, and homes. After ensuring all members of the Doorvest community was safe, we focused on repairing damaged homes as a first priority. However, this reallocation of resources impacted our ability to complete scheduled home renovations, which caused a dip in our March revenue. Fortunately, our business has since recovered, and we feel more confident than we ever have about our home supply pipeline going into 2022.
This August, we raised our Series A, led by M13, a venture capital firm focused on consumer tech with successful portfolio companies such as Lyft, Pinterest, Tonal, and Bonobos. With our latest $14 million round, we not only joined this list of forward-thinking companies backed by M13’s industry knowledge but also gained the support of numerous other backers.
In November, we launched our first crowdfunding campaign powered by Wefunder, in order to open up investing to our broader community. Doorvest was an embodiment of the needs of our community for an easy way to participate in real estate and it’s been core to our DNA work towards broadening access to all. As such, we allocated $200k for this opportunity and in less than a month, we not only hit but exceeded our goal, with over 300 investors participating.
With the above investments, we now have the capital to support our quest to create more homeowners - I’m excited to share our continued growth in the coming year.
As of this writing, we’re a 40 person team, nearly 4x’ing our Vestie count going into 2021. Doorvest was born out of the pandemic and as we began to build the company, placed an emphasis on a best-in-class remote-first experience with a focus on trust and agency.
Although our business has significantly transformed, we hold steadfast in our values and initial mission. One of my highlights was that we were recently recognized as #13 on The Org’s “100 Most Transparent Tech Companies of 2021” while also placing #1 in the salary transparency category. We benchmark our compensation bands annually or alongside major company milestones, and they’re always posted publicly for both candidates and internal team members.
We remain committed to advancing financial security for all, and if 70% of Doorvest customers being first-time homeowners is any indicator, I think we’re headed well in the right direction.
Thank you for being on this wild journey with us. We couldn’t have completed such a big year without the support of our homeowners, residents, advisors, investors, community, and Vesties, of course. We’re so grateful for the love.
Wishing you wonderful holidays and cheers to the new year!
With gratitude,
Andrew Luong, Co-founder & CEO