LOS ANGELES—Realty Mogul has launched a commercial real estate lending division. The new division is an expansion for the crowdfunding platform, which has already experienced success in the commercial equity and residential lending sectors. The new platform will focus on industrial, retail, multifamily and office commercial properties in the $1 million to $10 million range, including private money, bridge and permanent financing.

“We see an opportunity in small amount commercial lending in the $1 million to $10 million space,” Jilliene Helman, CEO of Realty Mogul, tells GlobeSt.com. “There is not a national platform that makes traction in that space because it is very hard to scale a transaction of that size, so we are using technology to give us efficiency and scale. It is also a great compliment to our equity product. For real estate entrepreneurs, they almost always have debt on the capital stack, and we wanted to be able to provide them with an offering that is not only providing the equity for them, but that is also providing the debt.”

The company has hired Philip Block as SVP of commercial lending and Megan Goodfellow as head of commercial real estate credit to lead the new platform. Block joins the company from Centerline Capital Group, where he served as VP of corporate finance and capital markets. Goodfellow also joins the firm from Centerline, and has previously led the credit for the CMBS group of JP Morgan Chase. She will specifically focus on the credit risk management of the platform. 

“Our main goal is to streamline the process. There are a lot of lenders in the market, and they are all approaching the market in a slightly different way. We want to use technology in order to make the experience really fabulous for the commercial real estate borrowers,” says Helman. “We have the ability to underwrite really quickly; we have the ability to get quotes quickly; and we have a very wide spectrum of investors that have submitted capital to these products. We have certainty of capital, and when we look broadly across the market, we really want to be known as a specialist in that small amount space.”

This is the latest news in the company's expansion plans. It recently opened its second office in Irvine, CA, and earlier this year hit the $50 million milestone in investments, which was dispersed over 180 properties nationwide. “We're excited to launch our commercial lending platform as it rounds out our investment offerings to allow us to fund the full capital stack,” adds Helman. “With over 16,000 accredited investors funding equity transactions and hundreds of millions of dollars from institutions to fund debt transactions, we are continuing to execute on our vision of being an online real estate marketplace.”