From an early age, Bar Mor knew he would inevitably do something with real estate. His family has been involved in every kind of real estate projects, from greenfield construction to residential, business and retail property management.
But unlike his parents, Mor also had a passion for technology. His interest in technology grew when he became commander of Unit 8200, an elite cyber intelligence unit of the Israel Defense Forces known for knocking out tech entrepreneurs.
After leaving the military, he decided to mix his two passions: Mor noticed that many real estate investors didn’t have a dedicated system to track various back-office processes, equivalent to managing money collected from rent, calculating and distributing proceeds to their LPs, and much more administrative functions.
“We have seen corporations struggling to manage all these tasks, using a lot of spreadsheets, emails and… [other] disconnected systems that do not interact with each other,” Mor said.
This realization led him and his Unit 8200 friends Lior Dolinski and Noam Kahan to found the company Nowa software company that manages data, automates reporting, streamlines fundraising processes and provides accounting and tax services for real estate investment corporations of all sizes.
Mor said that when he initially raised funds, he told investors he was building Carta for real estate. The comparison is easy to see: Carta manages cap tables for startups and VCs, along with other administrative functions. Because real estate investing is similarly data-intensive, investors need tools to automate manual work and calculate returns.
Since its launch five years ago, Agora has tripled its revenues every 12 months. On the back of strong growth, the company announced on Thursday that it has raised $34 million in Series B capital from Israeli growth fund Qumra Capital along with returning investors Insight Partners and Aleph. Thanks to these funds, Agora’s total financing amounted to USD 63 million.
Mor said it wasn’t difficult for the company to raise the latest round.
Mor said that while some real estate investors struggled in the face of rising rates of interest, Agora continued to grow and maintain a high customer retention rate. “It shows that we are actually solving a problem that is not pleasant. This is a must-see.”
Agora currently operates mainly in North America, Europe and Israel, but plans to start serving customers in other markets, including: in Central America, South America and Australia.
Mor’s family experience in real estate continues to help him build his company.
“It gave me my personal background [a way] to understand how people in the real estate industry think, what they care about and how they negotiate,” he said.
This knowledge influenced various areas of Agora’s operations, including the interaction of client managers with clients. Each customer has the cell phone number of their account manager.
“A real estate guy, he has his broker, his lawyer, he has a relationship with the bank. “I want everything like that,” Mor said, putting his hand to his ear as if he were holding a phone. “The idea is that we are your technology partner. Need something with your technology? Call Agora.”