Playhouse Lands $2.8 Million Seed Round

<p><strong>SAN FRANCISCO<&sol;strong> &&num;8212&semi; Playhouse&comma; a company developing a new way to surf real estate&comma; has landed &dollar;2&period;8 million in seed funding from several funds&comma; including Agya Ventures&comma; Gaingels&comma; Goodwater Capital&comma; Nomo Ventures&comma; PKO Investments&comma; and Y Combinator&comma; as well as a number of notable angels and prominent content creators&period; Funds will be used for ongoing product development for the Playhouse app&comma; which enables users to enjoy TikTok-like videos on active real estate listings while learning more about property details&period; A beta version of the app is now available for Bay Area properties&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Hundreds of millions of people view real estate listings every month&comma; but only 6 million homes are sold each year&period; People love looking at houses&comma; whether they are actively hunting for a new home&comma; thinking aspirationally about where they’d like to be in the future&comma; or simply collecting renovation or decorating ideas&comma; and they deserve a better way to surf&comma;” said Playhouse Co-founder and CEO Alex Perelman&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;The most recent consumer innovation in this space was putting pictures of homes on the Internet&comma; and that was 15 years ago&period; Playhouse completely disrupts this flat&comma; boring experience by delivering fun&comma; educational&comma; and productive content so that people can engage with local real estate on their phones&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Playhouse leverages the existing behavior of how people explore commerce through video content online and extends it to evolve how they shop for real estate&period; Playhouse’s short&comma; full-screen videos act like the trailers before a movie&comma; getting people excited about what they could see&comma; depending on their interests&period; Users quickly and easily scroll through videos of real active listings on the app&comma; just as they would videos on TikTok&period; They can also browse listings using a map and apply filters if they are looking for something specific&period; The result is an enjoyable and practical way to discover real estate while learning more about homes and neighborhoods&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Playhouse will offer a personalized experience that keeps prospective buyers and window shoppers coming back again and again&period; Unlike other sites where users face an empty search box and have to decide what to do next&comma; people open the Playhouse app and instantly see something that grabs their attention&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Debuting with the beta is the Listing Price Game in which anyone can guess if the listing price shown is higher or lower than the property’s true listing price&period; As players try to accumulate correct answers&comma; they learn more about the values of homes in a particular area and the factors that affect those prices&period; Playhouse will continue to add interactive content like this as it builds out its platform&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;