Acre raises £6.5million to deliver tech revolution to home purchasing
Acre, the one-click mortgage intermediaries platform, has announced it has secured £6.5million investment to grow its tech platform and revolutionise the process of buying a home. The McPike Global Family Office (MGFO), joins returning investors Aviva and Founders Factory, to provide new funds to further Acre’s ambition to digitise the homebuying journey to buying and deliver new, innovative ways to support brokers’ businesses.
Acre’s new funding follows a successful 2022, which saw the all-in-one intermediaries platform grow to over 1300 users, representing over £10bn in annual mortgage volume, a 10x growth over the year. The platform signed its first protection-only firm, Intrinsic House, and saw a number of the country’s fastest-growing networks, including Cornerstone Finance Group and Beneficial Network, join the Acre ecosystem. Integrations with five lenders also went live, including Santander and TSB.
Following this investment, Acre will continue its rapid customer growth and pursue its vision of changing the way people buy homes. Acre plans to roll out new partnerships with lenders and insurers that help its brokers recommend and apply for the right financial products and services as efficiently as possible. Acre believes that in order to deliver on this vision, client data and identity needs to be entered and verified once, and shared across the whole homebuying process. The fintech’s ongoing evolution comes at a time when lending is increasingly complex due to the difficult economic climate, and brokers’ increased responsibility for outcomes for their customers.
Justus Brown, CEO and founder of Acre said:
“We pride ourselves on being at the forefront of innovation in financial advice, delivering a new, modern approach that simplifies the advice journey for brokers and delivers on the needs of clients. This latest fundraise demonstrates our strength and commitment to the market and supercharges our ambitions as the tech platform of choice for brokers.
“For many homebuyers, the financial turmoil of last year led to a greater appreciation of mortgage brokers and this trend is continuing into 2023. We give brokers the right tools, data and insight at the click of a button, so that they can excel at delivering speedy, efficient advice that meets the individual requirements of each case in a dynamic market,”
Ant Barker, Head of Venture Investments & Partnerships at Aviva commented:
“Acre represents the future of a tech-led mortgage market. Aviva Ventures are delighted to continue to support Justus and his team on Acre’s journey to deliver much needed tech innovation that benefits homebuyers, brokers and lenders.”
Drew Colaiezzi, private investments manager with MGFO added:
“We are excited to further our partnerships with Founders Factory and Aviva, and believe Acre is truly an all-encompassing innovative platform that is ripe to take advantage of the quickly evolving UK mortgage market. Justus is a phenomenal operator and has positioned Acre to scale rapidly while demonstrating its significant market disruption capabilities. Grateful for the opportunity to be a part of leading the charge in the technology revolution within the UK mortgage market.”
Today’s investment follows Acre’s earlier £5million fundraise in 2019, which was led by Aviva and Sesame Bankhall Group (SBG), and followed its spin out from Founders Factory’s venture studio.