Derrick Barker and Brittany Mosely first met through their grandparents during freshman move-in day at their Harvard dorm.
Since graduating in 2010, the two have been making moves across the real estate space as operators of short-term rental properties, large apartment complexes, and single-family houses.
Unlike other investment opportunities, real estate requires a large upfront investment for down payments and renovations, which turns into a small amount of revenue each month. The two saw first-hand the need to create a “marketplace for real estate cash flow.” Barker said that idea helped jumpstart Nectar, a startup that packages future real estate cash flows and sells that “sweet” income stream to investors.
Barker and Mosely started Nectar in Barker’s hometown of Atlanta this year. Nectar is first going after the 15% of Airbnb hosts who operate 20 units or more. The team sees this as the best pool of first users because Airbnb hosts are generating impressive cash flow numbers but are stuck with less-than-ideal financing options to grow their businesses.
The revenue-based financing option, the team says, allows for flexibility given the cyclical nature of Airbnb bookings. Mosely says the ultimate goal is to make Nectar a marketplace for all types of real estate investors — be it in apartments or laundromats —to grow their capital.
On the other side, investors can get passive real estate income without having to manage Airbnb properties themselves.
Nectar has quickly found a home in the “Real Estate City” of Atlanta, given the number of short-term operators and apartment managers looking to meet the demand of newcomers and visitors to the city.
The team also found a home within Techstars Atlanta’s recent cohort. The cheering section alone suggested Nectar was a fan favorite at yesterday’s Demo Day, one of the first in-person Atlanta tech events to come back on the calendar this year.
Nectar’s pitch positioned itself well to follow in the footstep of other real estate and property tech-related success stories that have come out Techstars Atlanta recently. Those companies include New Orleans-based RentCheck and Atlanta-based PadSplit, which are both addressing pain points felt by renters.
The accelerator program has helped founders across multiple tech industries raise $150 million to date, according to Techstars Atlanta’s Dave Payne.
Nectar was one of several real estate and rental property-focused startups to join the Demo Day stage this week. Others included washbnb, a Milwaukee-based linen and laundry service for Airbnb hosts and smaller hotels, and the home-sharing marketplace ReRent.
To spruce up the outside of homes, Atlanta-based ServeScape also pitched at Demo Day, giving the audience a glimpse at the full-service landscape design and e-commerce marketplace it has built across the Metro Atlanta area.
Mosely told Hypepotamus that Nectar has been able to “partner and really feed off” the other real estate-focused startups in the cohort. “Each of us has our own connections within real estate and Airbnb industries, so it’s been really great to be in the same space because we’re able to share connections to share resources with each other.”
That family feel came across during Monday night’s Demo Day, which served as a reunion of sorts for many in the Atlanta entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Those in the audience got to hear from other Southeast startups like virtual dating platform Dovey and feedback integration software Punchlist. The Techstars audience also got to be one of the first to hear that cohort member OrderNerd was acquired by Atlanta RestaurantTech giant Popmenu.
Demo Day served as the launching off point into a busy week for entrepreneurs and investors who call Atlanta home. VCs and C founders will be spending the rest of the week at the Venture Atlanta conference and the Atlanta Startup Battle, both set to take place downtown this week.
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