NEW YORK CITY—Recently, Realty Mogul, based inBeverly Hills, CA, revealed its $9-million series A round led by VCfirm Canaan Partners. On the same day, San Francisco-basedRealCrowd announced a $1.6 million Series Seedround from a group of angel investors. Both of these companiesoperate online deal syndicates: they find deals and syndicate aportion of the equity from their investor pool (aka “users”), inexchange for a portion of the deal economics. Realty Mogul andRealCrowd are just two of the many companies syndicating realestate deals online.

In less than a year, all these platforms combined havesyndicated upwards of $50 million (by my estimates). What'sinteresting is not the sum (relatively low in real estate terms),but the rapid growth of these startup firms and the validation oftheir business model. These companies are quickly paving the roadfor a national non-institutional market for real estateinvestments. That's a big deal for everyone, especially for middlemarket operators, who stand to gain the most from the recentrelaxation of advertising rules by the SEC (JOBS Act), as well asfrom the scalable technologies that make it possible for them toreplicate what Realty Mogul and RealCrowd are doing.

Moreover, these young companies are proving that marketing andadvertising can and does generate enough investor leads, especiallywhen you have the technology to deal with a large number ofinvestors and properties.