HomeAdvisor Technologies Secures More Than $100 Million In Equity Funding

REDMOND, Wash., Aug. 23, 2000 — HomeAdvisor Technologies Inc. today announced that the five-month-old company has secured more than $100 million in equity funding, one of the largest single-round investments received in the online real estate and mortgage categories. The funding announcement follows a string of successes for HomeAdvisor Technologies and further reinforces its position as a leading provider of consumer and business-to-business technology services for the real estate and mortgage industries.

HomeAdvisor Technologies has had a series of major successes in the months leading up to its funding:

  • Launching the pilot Realty Desktop™
    transaction management platform, the real estate industry’s first completely Web-based customer and transaction management platform to combine both real estate and mortgage transaction solutions for real estate professionals

  • Becoming the first and only company to provide real-time, risk-based pricing, while also guaranteeing consumers the lowest-priced loan available anywhere*

  • Relaunching the HomeAdvisor.com™
    site, which was named the nation’s No. 1 Home Buying Site by Gomez Advisors Inc. last month

This round of funding includes equity investments from Chase Corp. and GMAC-Residential Funding Corp. (GMAC-RFC), two of the nation’s largest mortgage companies. HomeAdvisor Technologies is majority owned by Microsoft Corp.

“HomeAdvisor Technologies has established itself as the leading technology services company in the real estate and mortgage industries,”
said Denis O’Leary, head of Chase.com.
“Our investment will speed us to our goal of creating deeper relationships with Chase’s entire home financing customer base — from consumers to correspondents, brokers, realtors and corporate customers.”
Chase.com, in partnership with Chase Capital Partners, is the Chase unit responsible for developing joint ventures with Internet companies and often makes strategic investments in those companies.

“HomeAdvisor Technologies is well ahead of anyone in the industry — working together, we can better serve GMAC-RFC’s valued partners in the mortgage finance industry,”
said Mike Kozlak, president of the Residential Capital Group at GMAC-RFC.
“This transaction platform is the first of its kind, and it is already saving time and money for our partners and customers.”

HomeAdvisor Technologies also announced the addition of David Rinn, an eight-year Microsoft veteran and most recently Microsoft’s senior director of product finance, as its chief financial officer. Rinn, who was instrumental in securing these equity investments, has been tapped by Microsoft and the HomeAdvisor leadership team to head all financial operations for HomeAdvisor going forward.
“These investments are a great testament to the industry-leading products we have built, particularly given the current environment for investing in Internet companies,”
Rinn said.
“I am excited to be joining the HomeAdvisor team and look forward to helping create great value for our partners and customers.”

About HomeAdvisor Technologies

HomeAdvisor Technologies Inc. is dedicated to dramatically improving the way homes are financed, bought, sold and maintained. Formed in March 2000 and backed by Microsoft, HomeAdvisor Technologies consists of three divisions focused on delivering the tools and services necessary to revolutionize the real estate and mortgage transaction while delivering significant time and cost savings to consumers as well as real estate and mortgage professionals.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software — any time, any place and on any device.

* Certain offer restrictions apply. See http://www.homeadvisor.com/financing/finder/guarantee.asp for guarantee offer details.

Microsoft, Realty Desktop and HomeAdvisor.com are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.

The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ on Microsoft’s corporate information pages.

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