LOS ANGELES—Peer-to-peer lending platform Asset Avenue has been chosen to participate in the 2015 class of REach, a program to help grow technology companies within the commercial real estate industry. REach is sponsored by Second City Ventures, the strategic investment arm of the National Association of Realtors. 

“The REach program is great because it is the largest trade association in the world. It has more than 1 million members across the country, and 400,000 of them are brokers,” David Manshoory, the CEO and co-founder of Asset Avenue, tells GlobeSt.com. “It gives us the access to all of these major movers and players in the industry and it gives us the ability to reach all of the members of the industry that we want to bring Asset Avenue in front of. We really wanted to partner with them to bring Asset Avenue to the million-plus members across the country, and educate them about what we do as a company.”

To grow the business, Asset Avenue, which provides bridge and transitional loans ranging from $250,000 to $25 million, is building relationships with brokers and agents across the country, and the REach program will only help to facilitate these relationships. “Our biggest target market is brokers and agents within the real estate industry that are looking for alternative lending sources for borrowers to finance their properties, which is really what we do as a lending platform,” says Manshoory.

Being chosen for the program is an honor. According to Manshoory, several hundred technology-driven companies apply for the program every year, and, this year, less than 5% of those companies were chosen to join the program. “They select what they believe to be the most innovative companies within the industry that are technology driven,” adds Manshoory, noting that DocuSign was one example of a technology company that experienced great success after joining the program, becoming the leading national brand for digital document signatures. “In many ways, we are looking to emulate that success as a financing platform for real estate,” says Manshoory.

This news comes on the heels of Asset Avenue's series-A funding round, which raised $11 million for the company. The lending platform will use the funds to continue to grow the company's team, technology product and marketing efforts.