Homeward, a startup that helps homeowners buy before selling their existing homes or get cash offers for their properties, has raised a $120 million Series D round, Crunchbase News reports exclusively.
Saluda Grade, an alternative investment firm specializing in asset-backed credit, led the round, which also included participation from Continental General Insurance Co., Citi Ventures, Magnetar Capital, Norwest and LiveOak Ventures.
Homeward has now raised $360 million in equity since its 2018 inception. The company declined to disclose the valuation at which it raised the latest round, saying it was similar to its valuation at the time of its $136 million Series C raise in 2021, when it was reported to be “just north of $800 million.”
Austin-based Homeward has also secured a $330 million asset-backed debt facility to fund more home transactions. The equity funding will support expansion of its financing products and investment in its technology platform.
Its recent funding comes amid an uptick in startup investment to the proptech category this year. So far in 2026, global real estate-related startups have pulled in about $12.7 billion in seed- through growth-stage investment, per Crunchbase data, putting this year on pace to top last year’s funding, which totaled $12.3 billion. Investment in the sector still pales compared to the peak years however: In 2019, the second-highest year on record after the 2021 venture funding spike, real estate-related startups raised $24 billion, Crunchbase data shows.
Cashing out before a sale
Homeward works through real estate agents to help clients access the equity tied up in their homes and navigate the timing of buying and selling. Its Buy Before You Sell program provides short-term financing so homeowners can purchase their next house before selling their current one, along with a guaranteed backup offer for the existing property.
For homeowners seeking a faster sale, its Sell Before You List program offers a cash purchase and a closing in a matter of weeks. Homeward then fixes up the property and resells it on the open market, returning the profit to the original homeowner while charging a program fee.
“We realized that there’s an opportunity to help homeowners sell their home fast without sacrificing all of their home equity like they would have to if they sold to an investor,” founder and CEO Tim Heyl told Crunchbase News in an interview.
The financing has helped Homeward roll out its cash-offer program across the 48 contiguous states, Heyl said. The company also plans to make its Buy Before You Sell program available nationwide by year-end.
The expansion follows a pivot that Heyl credits with helping Homeward more than quadruple revenue since 2021, even as U.S. home sales fell roughly 30%, according to his estimates.
“Our ability to really exponentially grow over the last four years or so was a huge thanks to the pivot,” Heyl said, pointing to its Sell Before You List product, which is aimed at “the home sellers that are still transacting.”
Over the years, Homeward says it has partnered with more than 25,000 real estate agents and facilitated over $4 billion in transactions.
A pivot as homeowners stayed put
From 2019 through 2022, Homeward focused exclusively on helping homeowners buy their next house before selling their existing one. The offering appealed to agents and consumers competing in a tight housing market, and the company grew quickly, Heyl said.
But rapidly rising interest rates made that customer base harder to reach. Homeowners who might otherwise have moved into a larger or smaller house stayed put as moving costs rose.
“It became more expensive, definitely a lot more expensive, to move up, but even for a lot of people, more expensive to move down,” Heyl said.
Homeward responded by broadening the types of sellers it could serve. While fewer people were buying and selling at the same time, some homeowners still needed to sell without buying another property. And with homes taking longer to sell and prices less predictable, Heyl saw a growing demand for cash offers.
In early 2023, Homeward launched Sell Before You List. The distinction, in Heyl’s view, is that Homeward offers a service to sellers rather than seeking to capture the upside from buying and reselling their homes.
“Once we fix the house up and sell it for its full price on the open market, we send that profit back to the original homeowner,” he said.
Homeward also reworked its original Buy Before You Sell offering, lowering its cost and simplifying it for a market in which homes no longer routinely sell over a weekend with multiple offers. That business has contributed significantly to growth over the past year or so as more homeowners have begun making moves again, Heyl said.
“Most homeowners that are trying to move up or move down still plan to use the majority of their home equity to make that next purchase,” he said.
Homeward also offers Buy With Cash, which lets buyers make cash-backed offers and refinance into a traditional mortgage after closing.
Direct-to-consumer marketing without the cost
The company’s distribution strategy centers on real estate agents. Homeward has partnered with more than 25,000 agents and facilitated more than $4 billion in real estate transactions, according to Heyl.
Rather than pursuing individual consumers, it seeks ongoing relationships with agents, teams and brokerages that can repeatedly bring clients to its programs.
“We don’t spend a dime going direct to consumer,” he said. “We don’t advertise. We don’t market.”
Some agents incorporate Homeward’s offerings into their own marketing under their own brands, also known as white-labeling. Others turn to the company when a client’s existing home or access to equity keeps them from making a new purchase.
“Sometimes it’s just unblocking the transaction,” Heyl said.
That growth in a difficult market helped attract Saluda Grade, which is backing Homeward for the first time. John Stepp, who runs the firm’s growth equity fund, said the team’s understanding of the problems facing buyers, sellers and agents stood out when compared with other “similarly situated” operators it had met.
“They really understood the core issues they were addressing,” Stepp said. “It was evident in their financial performance and their growth.”
Geographic expansion was another draw, he said, with the capital raise creating an opportunity to bring Homeward’s products to more markets.
“We recognize the product-market fit, and how useful this product set really is to eliminate some of the friction in the home transaction process for consumers,” Stepp told Crunchbase News in an interview, “and how useful of a tool it is for agents to be able to offer this.”
Using AI to speed up underwriting
As many other startups, Homeward is incorporating AI into its workflows. For example, the company is using AI to reduce the manual work involved in processing transactions and underwriting properties.
Large language models extract information from documents and help underwriters review property videos, photos and inspection reports. It does this by pulling out relevant details about roofs, heating and cooling systems, and a home’s condition, according to Heyl.
“AI has been huge for streamlining operations and underwriting,” he said.
For Heyl, the broader opportunity is to continue addressing the financing and timing problems that complicate home purchases and sales, even as the housing market changes.
“There’s been a major pullback, but it hasn’t changed the opportunity that exists to solve problems for buyers and sellers,” he said.
The company makes money in several ways. Buy Before You Sell carries a 1% program fee and a monthly interest cost. Sell Before You List carries a single program fee, with no monthly charge. Heyl did not specify the fee for that offering.
Homeward also generates revenue through its in-house mortgage and title businesses. Heyl said providing more services within the transaction can simplify the experience for buyers and sellers while reducing the program fee Homeward needs to charge.
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Related reading:
- Sector Snapshot: Proptech Funding Holds Up, But Investors Are Placing Different Bets
- Sector Snapshot: Real Estate Tech Funding Sees Slight Rebound, But Still Far Lower Than Peak Years
Illustration: Dom Guzman
