Patch of Land is a peer-to-peerreal estate crowdfundingonline marketplace and hard money loan provider that connects real estate developers needing financing to lenders and real estate investors. Patch of Land focuses on 6–24 months real-estate first lienmortgage loans with borrower guarantees. The company has originated more than $725 million real estate loans secured by $1.16 billion of real estate and has returned $185 million of investor capital. Patch of Land was one of the first real estate crowdfunding platforms. It was the first real estate crowdfunding platform to focus exclusively on real-estate loans as opposed to equity, or both debt and equity simultaneously. Patch of Land was the first to pre-fund the loans it offered, providing immediate accrual of interest and giving borrowers access to all borrowed funds immediately without needing to wait for investors to fund. Patch of Land was also one of the first to co-invest in its property loans alongside investors on its platform.
History
Patch of Land was established by Jason Fritton, Brian Fritton and Carlo Tabibi in 2012 in Los Angeles, California shortly after congressional passage of the United States Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, making it one of the earliest providers of online Real-Estate Crowdfunding. Jason Fritton was among those who lobbied the United States Congress for the inclusion of real-estate crowdfunding in the JOBS Act. The company hired AdaPia d'Ericco as Chief Marketing Officer and Amy Wan as its General Legal Counsel. In August 2015, Patch of Land announced its Indentured Trustee Investment Model, offering a bankruptcy remote investment structure and stronger consumer protections for its investors. Patch of Land opened its Indentured Trustee Model documentation to the public in the hopes that other firms would follow suit, as many did. In May 2015, Patch of Land completed the largest ever real-estate investment loan offering of $1,900,000 to be fully crowdfunded as of that date. In 2015, CNBC created its Crowdfunding Index, powered by Crowdnetic, and included Patch of Land in both the real estate sub-sector as well as the overarching crowdfinancing sector In April 2016, the company hired Paul Deitch from Oaktree Capital Management as CEO. He quit in November 2017 and was replaced by co-founder and chairman Jason Fritton. In 2016, Entrepreneur named Patch of Land to its list of 100 Brilliant Companies.
Funding and investment
In October 2014, Patch of Land became the first real estate crowdfunding firm to crowdfund itself via the SeedInvest equity fund-raising platform. In April 2015, the company raised $23.6 million in a Series A round led by SF Capital Group as well as an investment from Ron Suber, president of Prosper Marketplace. In February 2016, the company announced that it had secured $250 million in investments from a large east coast credit fund via a forward flow arrangement.
