Brussels-based startup Nodalview‘s platform allows real estate agencies to produce professional quality pictures and 360° virtual tours of properties. It has just raised its first round of financing of €1.7 million from venture capital firm Volta Ventures to accelerate international expansion.
Nodalview was founded in 2016 and operates in France, Belgium, and Switzerland. The solution is used by over 6,000 real estate agents to capture AI-powered eye-catching photos and 360° immersive virtual tours of properties using a smartphone. Agents can choose to equip themselves with a nifty professional mobile photography kit for even higher impact and quality.
Nodalview’s clients include small independent agencies and large real estate groups, which use its platform to produce high quality engaging visual content for 30,000 properties per month.
The new funding will be used to accelerate international growth across Europe, specifically in Germany, Spain, and Italy. Nodalview will also continue to invest in its development team to further enhance its technology to provide broader AI-powered smartphone-based visual marketing solutions for the real estate sector.
Europe has over one million real estate agencies that are being heavily digitised with the majority of transactions starting online, where high quality visuals play a very important role.
Almost 50% of homebuyers are between 24 and 36 years old, a digital-first generation who are very receptive to visual experiences.
“Professional quality visual content drastically improves online visibility of properties and can yield on average 116% more daily views of listings on property portals according to a recent study we conducted confirming the global trend across industries of the importance and impact of good pictures,” said Thomas Lepelaars, CEO of Nodalview. “With Nodalview, real estate agents can capture professional quality, automatically enhanced & edited photos or 360° immersive virtual tours of properties in minutes with no technical knowledge and nothing else than a smartphone.”
Nodalview’s digital solution also helps large companies reinvent business models like French real estate disruptor Proprioo.
“Nodalview allows us to quickly capture professional pictures and 360° virtual tours. The solution is a perfect fit for our quality and productivity standards, essential drivers in our mission to reinvent the real estate transaction experience at scale!” said Henri Pagnon, CEO of Proprioo. “Besides Proprioo, Nodalview’s 2,000+ clients include large residential real estate brands like C21, Laforêt, Nestenn, Orpi, etc. but also high-end agencies like Barnes and commercial real estate companies like CBRE and Befimmo.”
To fuel its ambitious growth the startup will be heavily hiring in development, sales, marketing and customer success specialists.
“These funds will help us unlock Nodalview’s full potential by recruiting over 20 people over the next 12 months in Belgium and abroad,” said Thomas Lepelaars.
“We were impressed by the ease of use of the technology but also by their 2,000 customers, without any external funding,” said Volta Ventures Managing Partner Frank Maene. “We are happy to finance their continued growth.”