CompStak CEO Michael Mandel
Fresh off a $12 million funding round, real estate data platform CompStak is in expansion mode, with new offices to open in Chicago and Atlanta.
Along with the additional cities, the company will also expand its footprints in Los Angeles and New York, it announced Tuesday, seeking to bulk up its data exchange program.
CompStak Exchange allows brokers, appraisers and data teams to upload property and transaction data to its platform, where it can be exchanged for other data the parties might need. Michael Mandel, CompStak’s co-founder and CEO, said he wants to grow the exchange program from 20,000 users to 150,000.
“Getting in front of the people we work with will help a lot,” Mandel said of the expansion. “It helps us to better understand the markets we’re working in and better learn what our clients want.”
The fundraising and expansion comes amid rising competition in the real estate technology and analytics industries. In October, CompStak launched a real-time data platform called CompStak Analytics, months before rival VTS launched a similar product. Earlier this month, VTS announced it had raised $90 million in its latest funding round, an investment that catapults it into the ranks of unicorns, or startups valued at $1 billion or more.
CompStak’s expansion, meanwhile, was spurred by a recent Series B funding effort that pulled in $12 million. The analytics firm has raised $28 million since it launched in 2012.
Mandel said CompStak’s growth shows the demand for the “granular” data that it and rivals provide. Such analytics are a win for the local and national commercial real estate market, he said.
“It provides transparency in the market,” Mandel said. “Increasing transparency results in more efficient deal making. That’s better for everybody.”
CompStak opened a Chicago location with a 12-person office in a River North WeWork. It will serve as the company’s Midwest headquarters.
Chicago is CompStak’s second largest concentration of clients, behind its New York City headquarters. The firm also opened a six-person office in Atlanta, which will serve as its Southeast hub.
In Los Angeles, CompStak subleased an office in a 100-year-old Victorian house in Venice Beach. The new space will allow the team there to grow from six employees to around 20, Mandel said.
Including its New York office, CompStak has nearly doubled its employee headcount in the first quarter of 2019, according to the company. That includes the hiring of Chris Aronson, formerly the CEO of data firm EDR, to be the company’s chief commercial officer.
CompStak’s clients include Tishman Speyer, Vornado, Wells Fargo and major commercial brokerages, according to the company.