Jul. 14—CLARKSVILLE — A Clarksville startup has secured more than $1 million in seed round funding from a Chicago-based venture firm that focuses on supporting startups in the Midwest.
TitleWise Technologies Inc. is a platform that helps real estate companies, banks, attorneys and others to make the process of researching land titles easier for everyone involved.
CEO and Co-founder Jennifer Mason is also a co-owner of Southern Indiana Abstract Company and said TitleWise was created to help them solve a problem they had.
"If you bought property, title research was one step you had to go through to get that done," she said. "Title research is a foundational component of the overall transaction process."
The funding will help TitleWise hire more people to work on their team and create jobs in Clarksville and the Midwest.
"Originally with TitleWise we were doing what is called bootstrapping," Mason said. "Paying for it ourselves, with savings and extra spending money. About a year ago we knew to take it to the next level, not only did we need capital, we needed mentoring. We did some regional pitch competitions and we had some success."
M25, based out of Chicago and Indianapolis, is providing the seed round funding.
Indiana Business Times reports the firm has a lot of praise for TitleWise.
"We were excited to see a solution for title researchers by title researchers that helps bring abstracting processes and data management into the 21st century," M25 Managing Partner Victor Gutwein said in a news release. "TitleWise has an expert team with a cutting edge product that we know will be a leading software for the future of the industry."
Mason is a Floyds Knobs native and said she's very encouraged and grateful for the support the startup has received from people in Southern Indiana.
"We started talking about it in our garage in 2017 and by 2019 we had the first version ready, and we launched that with our clients at the title company," she said. "And then a year later the pandemic happened, and the real estate market boomed. We were able to hire all that increase and volume without any new hires or outsourcing By 2020 it was (about) keeping our company competitive in an insane market."
The company's home base is in the Bolt + Tie building in Clarksville and Mason said she's excited to be a part of the revitalization in that area of town.
"I love the mix of residential and professional, and the food and drinks and entertainment," she said. "To have it within walking distance, it's going to blow up."