PeerStreet: Enabling Real Estate Investors To Reach Previously Inaccessible Asset Classes

It's almost that time of year.

The 2017 Benzinga Global Fintech Awards is a competition to showcase the companies with the most impressive technology that are paving the future in financial services and capital markets.

To get you prepared for this year's awards, Benzinga will profile each fintech company that has applied. Want to get involved? Submit your company here.

For this installment, we spoke with Brett Crosby, chief operations officer of PeerStreet (answers have been edited for length and clarity).

PeerStreet

What does your company do? What unique problem does it solve?

PeerStreet is revolutionizing real estate investing by opening a previously inaccessible asset class to investors through technology to give investors more control and greater transparency.

Who are your customers?

PeerStreet is a true marketplace, and the company serves several customer bases. At a high-level, there are investors and lenders; PeerStreet investors participate in pieces of loans made available on the platform. Investors typically include individual accredited investors, RIAs and funds.

There are also institutional investors interested in purchasing loans from PeerStreet. Lenders are PeerStreet's supply source and this group consists of private lenders across the country financing single-family residential fix-and-flip, buy-to-rent and commercial properties.

PeerStreet works with local, non-bank lenders from across the nation to source loan investments. Individual investments start as low as $1,000.

How long have you been in business? PeerStreet started in 2014; the platform launched publicly in October 2015.

Where are you located?

Manhattan Beach, California.

Who is your company's leadership?

PeerStreet was founded by real estate attorney, Brew Johnson; former Google GOOG GOOGL) executive, Brett Crosby; and engineer Alex Perelman, who came together for a single mission — to bring Wall Street to Main Street.

Brew is the visionary leader behind PeerStreet. Brew's experience with technology platforms, real estate and law culminated in the unique PeerStreet concept.

I craft the strategy, product and message behind PeerStreet. I was previously the director of product marketing at Google. Most notably, I co-founded Google Analytics, helped start Google's mobile advertising business, ran the founding product marketing team that launched Google+ and more recently ran the global marketing teams responsible for the dramatic growth of Chrome, Gmail, Docs and Drive.

Alex runs PeerStreet's engineering team. He has an extensive background in computer science, product development and entrepreneurial business. His experience includes roles at Electronic Arts Inc. EA and Activision Blizzard, Inc. ATVI where he developed some of the world's most successful video game franchises including "Call of Duty" and "Spiderman."

Anything else Benzinga should know about your company?

PeerStreet was most recently backed by Andreessen Horowitz, a highly respected venture capital firm, and was announced as a finalist for a LendIt 2017 Industry Award in the Emerging Real Estate Platform category.

In the last year alone, PeerStreet has won several awards, including:

• The No. 1 investment choice of the year for Invest Like a Boss.
• The No. 1 platform on the Real Estate Crowdfunding Review.
• Think Realty's Innovator of the Year in Lending.

If you’re looking for cool fintech startups and access to top financial institutions, and are sick of attending stuffy corporate conferences, the Benzinga Global Fintech Awards is the event for you. From its first year in 2015, the competition grew to over 250 applicants and over 500 attendees in 2016.

Connect with us on social media — use the hashtag #BZAwards and #Fintech to spread the word!