Announcing our $1m pre-seed fundraise - one step closer to our mission
Doorvest's mission is to democratize financial security for everyone, and today we are one step closer.
A letter from our co-founder and CEO, Andrew Luong
In 2014, I was a college student in San Francisco, studying chemistry with the hefty hopes of making it to medical school. To my disappointment, I was neither talented nor interested in that path. Fortunately, due to the nature of being in San Francisco, I landed my first job at a startup where I learned how insanely effective startups are at driving positive change in the world. Through earning (and saving) my first paychecks, I also encountered my first struggles with navigating the world of personal finance. I was often left wondering how something as important as personal finance was excluded from all standard curriculums.
Once I felt I had successfully conquered the world of saving, next up was putting these savings to work - investing. Specifically, investing with the objective to build financial security. Financial security would enable me to continue to work at awesome companies I cared about, choose to live on a beach, potentially take low pay and work at a nonprofit, start a family, or maybe even start a startup.
After many trials and tribulations, I landed upon single-family rental homes and eventually amassed a small portfolio. Along with that, I earned myself a small nest egg. Friends and friends of friends were intrigued, and I'd spend time chatting about my endeavors - even coaching a few through home #1. One of these was Justin Kasad, my good friend and now, co-founder.
Firsthand, I heard the aspirations along with the struggles of others leading me to realize that the participation gap was attributed to the fragmented state of “real estate investing”. “Real estate investing” was a long, complex list of unanswered questions for new investors and/or busy individuals:
Which market should I look into?
What home makes the most sense for me?
How do I vet an agent and write offers?
What do I need to do to line up financing? Insurance?
What about the transaction process?
How about renovations once I close?
Leasing? Management?
Finally, how should I approach tracking and bookkeeping?
Looking through the dizzying list of questions above, Justin and I embarked on a journey to build Doorvest, a modern, frictionless way to buy and own income-generating rental homes, entirely online.
Today, Justin and I, along with our amazing team of Doorvestors and our extended family of investors, are excited to announce our $1m pre-seed fundraise. During this process, we’ve been painfully intentional about the partners we’ve brought together for this journey. Words cannot express how grateful we are to our friends Erik Rannala and Will Hsu at Mucker Capital in addition to our extensive list of supporters: Andrew & Praveen, my former CEOs Matt and Roger, our former corporate counsel and soon-to-be Head of Finance Jack, Albert Cheng and the crew at Socially Financed, Victoria, Kathy, Judd, Josh, Derek, Tim, Kyle, Marcus, our parents, and the ~30 incredible individuals who have enlisted support.
We still have a long road ahead to achieve our mission of bringing financial security to everyone but are excited to celebrate this small milestone.
- Justin & Andrew