Wheretolive.com seeks $15M, scouts buyout targets

I think this is Of Interest.. it is from 2002, where by WhereToLive.com was Seeking Big Money to get their real estate mega-site off the ground. Who was working at Wheretolive.com at this time, who owned the company and when did Brian Utley get involved with Wheretolive.com. Stay Tuned for a Clearer Picture on Wheretolive.com , and on Brian Utley's Role in the


"Friday, July 12, 2002 -

Wheretolive.com Inc., an Eden Prairie startup making a run at the scarred landscape of dot-com realty sites, is embarking on a funding round that could raise up to $15 million. It also is eyeing other small Internet real-estate firms as acquisition targets.
The company is working to raise roughly $3 million in equity; another $12 million or so will come in a later stage of the round, said co-founder and CEO Roald Marth. He declined to discuss details of the financing effort.
Launched last summer, Wheretolive bills itself as a "second-generation" Internet realty business. Earlier efforts, such as HomeStore.com and Homes.com, primarily targeted consumers and relied on an advertising model. Wheretolive sells hosting and Internet services to real estate agents and brokers. Agents who subscribe receive a managed Web site as well as support for wireless e-mail devices that let house-hunters contact them fast.
The agent model is a smart one, said Robert Cringely, a technology columnist and the writer of the PBS mini-series Triumph of the Nerds. Where a home buyer may need to visit HomeStore.com only once a decade, real estate professionals need the service constantly, Cringely said. "That means bigger customers who are also smarter and have a greater incentive to stay with Wheretolive."
The company expects to have $2.5 million in revenue this year and $13.7 million in 2003.
The real estate industry was one of the early favorites of venture capitalists, who put millions into ventures such as HomeStore Inc. only to watch most of their investments flame out. The publicly-traded HomeStore, which saw its stock rise to more than $50 per share, now trades at less than $1.
For that reason, most of the backers of Wheretolive have come not from the venture-capital market but from the real estate industry, which has put up most of the $6.5 million in outside financing raised so far. For example, the company counts Twin Cities real estate agent Barry Berg among its largest investors.
"We haven't had any traditional VC investment so far, and we probably will not [in the near future]" Marth said, noting that venture investors remain leery of the realty dot-com sector. "There was too much investment in this area two years ago, and now there's too little," he said.
Marth didn't specify how proceeds would be used, but in a presentation at this spring's Minnesota Venture Capital Conference, hosted by NetSuds Inc., Marth and other officials said Wheretolive was seeking to build a market presence by buying out several other small realty dot-com businesses.
Then, Marth said the firm sought to acquire Virtual Properties Plus Inc. and Comstock Net Services Inc., both of Atlanta, and RealTech Real Estate Inc. of Arlington, Va., all small firms that provide similar services to Wheretolive.com

But Comstock was acquired last month by Fidelity National Information Solutions Inc., a publicly-traded arm of the insurance and real estate giant. Marth suggested that other big financial players will be looking for acquisitions as well. "
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Source
http://twincities.bizjournals.com/twincities/stories/2002/07/15/story6.html
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And now Brian Utley is the Chief Strategy Officer of Wheretolive.com - Did Brian Utley invest in the company. It seems like there is a lot more to this story. Stay Tuned..

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