Playhouse
THE destination for real estate listing videos! On Playhouse, listings are fun, authentic, and addictive - get the app!.
| Date | Investors | Amount | Round |
|---|---|---|---|
| - | investor | €0.0 | round |
| investor | €0.0 | round | |
* | $2.8m | Seed | |
| Total Funding | 000k | ||
Playhouse operates a mobile application that presents real estate listings through a short-form video format, akin to TikTok, targeting prospective homebuyers, casual browsers, and real estate agents. The platform was co-founded in 2020 by Alex Perelman and Nathan Shinder. The founders, who are long-time friends, drew upon their professional and personal experiences to create the company. They previously worked together for three years at PeerStreet, a real estate technology firm where Perelman was a co-founder and the Chief Technology Officer. Their own home-buying journeys highlighted an opportunity to develop a product for the next generation of real estate consumers.
Playhouse aims to transform the often flat and static experience of browsing property listings into an engaging and educational one. The app allows users to scroll through a feed of vertical, full-screen videos of active property listings, which can also be browsed on a map with specific filters. Beyond video tours, the platform provides detailed property information, photographs, and the ability to contact agents directly. To increase user engagement and market education, Playhouse has incorporated gamification elements, such as the "Listing Price Game," which challenges users to guess if a property's price is higher or lower than its actual listing price.
The company's business model targets both consumers and real estate professionals. For users, it offers a discovery tool for active buyers and an entertaining platform for those casually interested in real estate, sometimes referred to as "Zillow surfing." For real estate agents, Playhouse serves as a marketing tool to join the creator economy, enabling them to showcase properties and their personal brand with more personality than on traditional platforms. In April 2022, the company announced it had raised $2.8 million in a seed funding round from investors including Y Combinator, Agya Ventures, Gaingels, Goodwater Capital, and prominent content creators. Initially launched in beta for properties in the San Francisco Bay Area, the app is free to download from the Apple App Store.
Keywords: real estate video, property discovery, mobile real estate, proptech, Alex Perelman, Nathan Shinder, real estate marketing, video listings, home buying app, property search, creator economy real estate, real estate gamification, interactive listings, Zillow alternative, real estate technology, seed funding, Y Combinator, San Francisco Bay Area real estate, agent branding, social real estate