FixList eyes six-city expansion fueled by a $400K seed round

FixList, makers of a software platform that helps users find redevelopment opportunities, closed a $400,000 seed round this week in a bid for expansion.

The round represents the first dollop of venture capital raised by the Callowhill startup, which has moved to an office on 990 Spring Garden, near mapping firm Azavea. It also brought on two full-imers to its team of four: an infrastructure engineer in Vistar Media alum Sean Fern and a junior data engineer in Temple University adjunct Jon Tehrani.

Cofounder Stacey Mosley declined to disclose the investor, though she said it was a strategic Philly-based investor from the private sector. What will 2018 hold for the now-venture-backed company?

“Moving to new markets and make our services more robust and holistic,” said Mosley, who started her civic-tech career as a data scientist at the City of Philadelphia’s Department of Licenses and Inspections. “We’ve added a free tier to make our idea more acceptable to folks getting started in development. We’ve also launched a dashboard where folks can see where construction and land sales are being done.”

With the new additions to the tech staff, FixList aims to add new features and functionality to allow users to better identify investment opportunities. Next month, the platform will go live in Baltimore, with Washington, D.C., following suit shortly after.

“In 2018, we aim to be in six to eight markets, with a three-to-five year plan of 20 markets,” said Mosley, who brought on civic technologist Mjumbe Poe as cofounder and CTO in 2017. “The launch of the new dashboard will really help people get the lay of the land before knowing if they want to invest.”

Mosley said the startup’s participation in the Ben Franklin / Village Capital fintech accelerator provided value to the fundraising process.

“After getting to know more of the local investors, we had folks keep tabs on us,” the founder said. “That visibility definitely helped.”

—

Full disclosure: FixList cofounder Stacey Mosley and Technical.ly cofounder Brian James Kirk are partners. Kirk was not involved in this report.