LOS ANGELES—Direct Lending Investments, an institutional investor, has partnered with crowdfunding platform Realty Mogul to invest $73 million to fund residential rehab loans through the platform. This is Realty Mogul's first partnership with an institutional investor.

This investment will help Realty Mogul to expand its current platform to include residential rehab loans, a new venture for the crowdfunding platform, which recently carved out a name for itself as the nation's leading crowdfunding real estate investment platform after raising the $30 million in capital for various real estate acquisitions throughout the country. The residential rehab loans will provide an alternative capital source for rehab investors.

This partnership also marks Direct Lending's foray into funding residential rehab loans. The investor is known for funding peer-to-peer small business loans, and has invested $100 million worth of online small business loans in total. Direct Lending hopes that these high-yield, short-term investments will lead to strong returns for their fund's investors.

According to Jilliene Helman, Realty Mogul CEO and founder, the fact that Realty Mogul is attracting institutional investors marks a milestone in the company's evolution, as well as proves the vitality of crowdfunding in the commercial real estate space. Realty Mogul currently has 12,000 accredited investors funding property acquisitions through the online platform.

We will update this story with comments from Helman, as she is available.