Title insurance startup Spruce bags $60M in Series C funding round

PropTech startup Spruce Holdings Inc. says it’s in growth mode after closing on a $60 million round of funding led by Zigg Capital.

Repeat investors Bessemer Venture Partners and Scale Venture Partners also participated in the Series C round, which takes Spruce’s total funding to $110 million.

Spruce was founded in 2016 and has developed a real estate transaction platform that helps mortgage lenders, real estate investors, iBuyers and other PropTech firms manage closing and title processes. The platform helps to reduce the costs and time associated with transaction closings with its proprietary and technology-based title insurance, closing, escrow and recording services.

The company had already grown pretty big prior to its latest round of funding. It does business in 48 U.S. states and claims that its platform can reduce transaction times by up to 25% and saves homeowners as much as 20% on their closing costs. It also enables transactions to be processed and completed outside of restrictive federal hours, the company says. Further, it boasts that it’s the only title insurance provider to make its application programming interface available directly on its website.

Spruce co-founder and Chief Executive Patrick Burns said the company’s technology has already fundamentally changed the way investors and consumers experience real estate transactions. And there’s more to come, he promised.

“While we’re just getting started, we’re more excited than ever to work with our innovative partners to build the one-click checkout for real estate, especially as the attention on consumer needs and expectations has surged,” Burns continued.

Last March, Spruce announced a joint initiative with the insurance tech platforms Digital Partners and American Digital Title Insurance Company, offering a fully underwritten title commitment that it claims can be completed in just a few minutes.

Spruce says that this automated underwriting service is an example of the “one-click” real estate transactions it’s trying to build.

Spruce, whose clients include Better.com, Hometap and US Wide, said today’s funding will be used to help drive the continued expansion of its technology and grow its business.