Real Estate Marketing & Beyond
RealtyShares, an online marketplace for real estate investing has announced the hiring of Simon Morris as its new Chief Product Officer. Morris will assume responsibility for overseeing technology and product development as the pioneering tech company continues to grow its real estate crowdfunding platform.
Morris said “I chose to join RealtyShares because I’m interested in the dream of what this can be. I’m very impressed with the group of people who are here and the passion they have for what they’re doing. The opportunity to build a data driven platform to scale is very exciting and technology is an integral part of that vision.”
Morris has more than 20 years of leadership experience, most recently serving as the General Manager of BitTorrent Media, leading several divisions of the peer-to-peer file sharing platform. During his time at BitTorrent, Morris also acted as the Vice President of Marketing and Products, Vice President of Data Science and Senior Vice President of Products, User Experience and Data. Prior to BitTorrent, Morris had similar roles at Open ways Systems and Verisign. His extensive background in technology means Morris is particularly well-suited to tackle the demands of this new position.
RealtyShares CEO Nav Athwal sees Morris is hiring as being crucial to the company strategy for tech and product development, saying “RealtyShares has been fortunate to partner with amazing investors in Union Square Ventures, Menlo Ventures and General Catalyst Partners. The next phase of the company will focus on three main strategic imperatives-strong underwriting and credit decisioning, diversification of capital across institutions and individuals, and achieving scale through technology and product. Simon, with his experience leading product, data and UX, will be key to us achieving this third objective.”
Since its inception, over $150 million has been invested with RealtyShares and is spread across more than 330 investments. Earlier this year the platform announced a $20 million Series B funding round with the goal of broadening its scope in several key areas which include tech, product and marketing.
The unprecedented demand for its services has precipitated the need for RealtyShares to add to its executive lineup, according to Athwal. “RealtyShares is not a real estate company but rather a technology and data company. Over the last year we’ve hired an amazing engineering team led by our Chief Technology Officer Gene Linetsky and including high-powered data scientists. We wanted to hire a chief product officer that could fit well within the mission of building the leading online real estate investment marketplace by utilising data intelligently and Simon’s experience was very appealing. In short, he was a perfect fit.”
