Proptech startup Courted grows its roster of brokerage partnerships 

Courted has grown its roster of customers since its launch in 2021 and is within three months of reaching and sustaining profitability, the company announced on Friday.

Co-founded by Sean Soderstrom, Dan Breitbach and Joe Urciuoli, the proptech company sells an AI-powered software platform to help real estate brokerages with their recruiting efforts. 

Courted identified three main problems with how brokerages have historically recruited agents. First, there tends to be significant volatility in an individual’s production from year to year. Second, each agent has a varying likelihood to change brokerages at a specific point in time. Lastly, recruiters can struggle to create the right message that will attract a specific agent.

To tackle these issues, Courted leverages data from Multiple Listing Services (MLSs), which undergo meticulous data engineering to generate comprehensive agent profiles. These profiles are then subjected to a comparative analysis against a relevant cohort of agents. Key performance metrics such as sales volumes, the average time that listings spend on the market, and sale-to-list-price ratios are evaluated.

Courted’s brokerage and recruiting product was first deployed in Miami-Dade County, Florida, in May 2023. The company has expanded to 50 markets in the U.S. over the past year. 

The firm raised $6 million in seed funding in May 2022. Human Capital led the round with participation from Lakehouse Ventures, Second Century Ventures and other angel investors. Courted was notably invited to join the REACH Class of 2022, a technology scale-up program backed by the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

As of March 2024, Courted is working in partnership with several major brokerages: 

• One Sotheby’s International Realty, a Florida-based brokerage that boasts more than 1,300 agents 
• TTR Sotheby’s International Realty, a real estate brokerage in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area with 500 agents
• Jack Conway, an independent brokerage based in Massachusetts with more than 700 agents
• Michael Saunders & Co., an independent brokerage based in West Florida with more than 700 agents
• Windermere, an independent brokerage serving the West Coast and Mexico with some  7,000 agents
• Seven Gables, a luxury brokerage in Southern California with 500-plus agents
• John R. Wood Properties, a Christie’s International Real Estate affiliate in Florida with 750 agents
• SERHANT, a New York City-based brokerage with 500-plus agents
• LoKation Real Estate, a full-service brokerage with more than 3,000 agents
• Phyllis Browning, a Texas-based brokerage with more than 300 agents

Joshua Paul, vice president of operations at ONE Sotheby’s International Realty, uses AI recruiting tools from Courted. They allow him to prepare effectively before meeting with a job candidate. They help make the conversations more personalized and more intentional, he said. 

At a glance, Paul can access an agent’s yearly transaction details and their results across various key performance metrics. He can also consult predictive analytics to forecast the potential performance of an agent.

“I can understand the agent’s entire business in less than 20 minutes, so that when I’m having an in-person conversation with the agent, it feels like I’ve done a substantial amount of research,” Paul said.