Mainstay, a leading platform for documenting and managing residential property transactions, has closed an $18 million funding round and simultaneously announced the acquisition of Truelist. Truelist is an AI-powered platform for creating and distributing property listings, tailored for brokers and agents.
The San Francisco-based company Mainstay, which spun out as an independent entity from Opendoor in August 2024, integrates proprietary data, pricing intelligence, and automated agent processes. Its aim is to replace fragmented systems and manual workflows in the buying, owning, and selling of property. The founding team has over a decade of experience in building and operating residential property technology and infrastructure at scale.
Funding and Strategic Expansion
New investors in the funding round include Parker89, Stackpoint, Alpaca VC, and FJ Labs, complemented by existing backers such as Khosla Ventures, Era Ventures, and Clocktower Technology Ventures. Mainstay plans to use the funds to accelerate its expansion into the brokerage business and collaborate with smaller investors, the company stated in an announcement.
Dod Fraser, CEO and co-founder of Mainstay, commented via email on the motivations: He noted that pricing in the residential property sector has historically been opaque, due to fragmented and often inaccurate underlying data. By bringing together property data, market data, and actual transaction outcomes into a continuously updated property registry, they can provide owners, brokers, and agents with a significantly more transparent and accurate assessment of property value and its rationale. This transparency enables all stakeholders to make more informed decisions based on the same information.
Synergies from the Acquisition
Carey Armstrong, founder and CEO of Seattle-based Truelist, will join Mainstay as Chief Strategy Officer. Armstrong was previously Vice President of Zillow's Premier Agent business and co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of the AI company Tomo. Founded in 2024, Truelist developed an AI-powered listing platform that helps real estate brokers and agents manage, create, and distribute property listings within Multiple Listing Service systems.
Armstrong emphasised that Mainstay and Truelist had addressed the same inadequate system from different perspectives: Mainstay in the interest of investors, Truelist on behalf of brokers and agents. Joining forces means no longer duplicating efforts but multiplying them. He expressed great respect for what Dod Fraser and his team had built and looked forward to the shared opportunities. Mainstay reported having already facilitated over $12 billion in residential property transactions and executed more than 2 million automated workflows.
- —Clelia Peters, Managing Partner at Era Ventures and Mainstay board member, highlighted the unique combination of extensive residential property experience, a trove of proprietary data, and an innovation- and AI-centric approach.
- —This combination creates an opportunity to build something fundamental within the industry.
- —The teams of both companies have built and operated these systems at scale within the industry's largest and most innovative residential platforms.
