Buyside, a real estate industry provider of homebuyer intent and seller leads, will rebrand itself under the name Percy, company executives announced Monday.
The new name honors the company’s first investor, a great uncle of founder and CEO Charles J. Williams IV, who hopes this name is less restrictive than the company’s previous monniker.
“Many people were hung up on the name ‘Buyside,’ when in fact we are much more – we are the top seller lead generation tool for real estate,” Williams said in a statement. “The new brand allows us to expand into new markets like mortgage, bringing purchase loan opportunities to originators.”
But the rebranding isn’t Percy’s only big news. The company also announced it has raised $10 million in equity funding. Investments came from various fintech and real estate companies, including Howard Hanna Real Estate Services and Leading Real Estate Companies of the World. Percy plans to use the funds to expand and grow revenue by dedicating resources to marketing, sales and systems integration.
The Percy platform uses artificial intelligence to identify consumer intent, helping real estate agents, brokers, and now mortgage lenders, generate leads. Percy began working with lenders through the recent launch of Prosperity Home Mortgage, which has 565 loan officers across the U.S.
“With Percy’s success and adoption from our real estate brands, it only made sense for PHM to leverage the same application for our loan officers,” Ron Wivagg, the national sales manager for Prosperity Home Mortgage, said in a statement. “We now have a tech ecosystem that services both the real estate and mortgage businesses, which helps us maintain oversight of our client’s intent to transact.”
According to the company, Percy serves brokers in 60% of all real estate transactions. Additionally, in the first quarter of 2022, the company said application productivity showed a 36% increase in homeowner subscriptions and a total of $71.7 billion in transaction opportunities, up from roughly $20 billion during the first quarter of 2021.