Purchasing Platform, a Chicago-based procurement company focused on the real estate industry, has closed an angel round of investment capital.
The company raised a total of USD565,000 from various angel investors and intends to use the investment to fund start-up operations and complete the development of its ecommerce platform.
The Purchasing Platform application is a membership-based website aggregating the buying power of real estate operators to provide a centralised vehicle for the purchasing needs of both property managers and corporate staff. With more than 15 years of commercial real estate experience, the company’s founder and chief executive Peter Hepner identified a substantial void in the real estate operations marketplace.
“Prior to founding Purchasing Platform, I spent several years leading asset management for a USD3bn real estate investment company where on the whole, we were unable to effectively evaluate vendors, negotiate contracts, educate property managers, centralise products, and monitor vendor pricing,” Hepner says. “Purchasing for property managers should not be difficult and the existing purchasing environment in our industry fosters confusion and overspending. Our newly launched application solves this problem.”
The capital raise allows Purchasing Platform to complete the development of its ecommerce platform and build-out its business development, client support, and procurement teams.
“We have several companies awaiting the launch,” Hepner says. “This round of angel investment capital will allow us to bring our product to market and start integrating our first group of clients.”
The Purchasing Platform launch will include a wide array of products, allow for customised approval routing within each member company’s organisational structure, and offer detailed reports to analyse operational spend.
The angel round of funding also allowed for the hiring of an ecommerce industry veteran, Brad Kreutz. Joining the company as the chief operating officer, Kreutz previously ran operations at Cigar.com and T-Shirts.com from 2000 through 2009.