Casamatic plans expansion after receiving $1.1 million in seed funding

Local startup Casamatic has had a whirlwind first year. After starting with just an idea in late 2014, co-founders Alex Bowman and Chris Ridenour have grown their concept into a website and app operating in three cities and currently planning expansion to five more.
 
Bowman credits much of the organization’s explosive growth to the help they’ve received though the Cincinnati startup ecosystem, including going through accelerator programs at Ocean and The Brandery and serving as a Startup in Residence at 84.51°.
Alex Bowman 
“When we started the Ocean program, we knew we were tackling buying a home,” Bowman says. “We had the name and had a Twitter handle, and that was about it.”
 
They came out of Ocean with their now signature quiz for matching buyers with homes, and by the time they graduated from The Brandery they had users/customers and were beginning operations in Chicago.
 
Casamatic currently operates in Cincinnati, Chicago and Dayton and recently added its fourth team member, but those numbers won’t stay the same for long. In January, the company closed its first seed round of investments, garnering $1.1 million to fund further expansion.
 
The company’s growth matches its audience growth. Everything about Casamatic is designed with Millennials in mind, the fastest growing segment of home-buyers, particularly first-time home-buyers. The company is choosing markets for expansion based on that audience.
 
“The goal now is really to find where the other cities are where Millennials are buying homes,” Bowman says.
 
Casamatic is planning expansion to Phoenix, Raleigh, Columbus, Charlotte and Nashville. Bowman says that, once they launch in those markets, they’ll begin to look for the next 10-15 cities to target.
 
“We want to be in every city in the U.S.,” he says, “but more importantly, we want to be to de facto way for Millennials to buy homes.”
 
If growth continues at this rate, that goal doesn’t seem too far off.