A startup that’s automating the mortgage process has raised $7.5 million in Series A funding.
Irvine-based cloudvirga received the funding from a variety of sources, including Calabasas-based Dallas Capital, Santa Monica-based Upfront Ventures, New York City investment club Tribeca Angels and several individuals.
Bill Dallas, chief executive of cloudvirga, founded and runs Dallas Capital. The startup gets its name from “cloud” based on its cloud-based technology platform, and “virga,” which means precipitation that evaporates before it hits the ground. The mission of cloudvirga is to make the cost of mortgages “evaporate” as much as possible, said Chief Operating Officer Kyle Kamrooz.
The average cost of a loan is approximately $7,700, Kamrooz said. Cloudvirga aims to “dramatically” reduce that by streamlining the process through automation.
“The manual tasks that people do today should be automated,” he said, giving as an example the review of appraisals to make sure all of the data matches the title report.
In taking on the entire mortgage process beyond the originating loan application, cloudvirga aims to reduce the time it takes to close a loan, Kamrooz said. And it wants to increase the number of loans a full-time employee of a mortgage lender can process per month.
The impetus for starting cloudvirga was the effect of new federal rules and regulations imposed after the subprime mortgage crisis, Kamrooz said. The rules were meant to protect consumers, but they are so numerous and complex that they have the onerous effect of slowing down the process, he said.
“The problem with the new rules and regulations is you’re trying to put a V12 engine into a Yugo,” he said. “You can’t fit a monster piece of all these new workflow rules and try to live in a system that supported old-school [processes]. The underlying foundation … lacks the DNA to really promote an automated system.”
Cloudvirga created an automated system that it hopes the entire mortgage industry will adopt, he said. Co-founders Kamrooz, Dallas and Mark Attaway first developed the system at Calabasas-based lender Skyline Home Loans. They spun off from the parent company in February. Kamrooz and Attaway chose to locate the startup in their home base of Orange County.
Med-Tech Firm Gets $500K
An Irvine-based startup closed its first round of financing, obtaining $500,000. Modulated Imaging is a developer of light-based imaging systems for scientific and medical applications.
The Cove Fund I led the round of funding, joined by Japan-based Hamamatsu Photonics KK through its wholly owned subsidiary, Photonics Management Corp. The involvement of Hamamatsu is “significant,” said Modulated Imaging’s chief operating officer, Richard Oberreiter, “because they are one of the world’s largest suppliers of photonics components and are looking to expand their medical device business.”
The Cove Fund of approximately $5.5 million, comprised of three angel investors, provides startup money to new OC-based ventures, investing a maximum of $250,000 in any given one. Modulated Imaging had been self-funded prior to the investment through sales of its Reflect RS scientific instrument and approximately $8 million in research grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense. That includes a $1.8 million award the company received last week from the NIH for development and clinical trials of its diabetic foot ulcer prediction system.
Its first medical device is the Ox-Imager CS, which is pending U.S. Food and Drug Administration clearance. The device uses near-infrared light to see a few millimeters below the surface of the skin and measure how much oxygen is being delivered to the tissue. It’s intended to help doctors monitor the healing of chronic wounds and can be used in real time during lower-limb vascular surgery to determine if good circulation has been re-established.
Bits & Pieces
A few OC startups recently launched reward crowdfunding campaigns. Irvine-based Badu Networks started a campaign on Indiegogo to raise $300,000 for its first product, pixelFlik, which is a means of sharing large quantities of photos and videos with select groups of friends, family and colleagues that it calls “tribes.” It does that through a TV set-top box and a mobile app. Newport Beach-based Nunulo VR launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $15,000. It’s created a virtual reality device intended to reduce users’ nausea, dizziness, headaches and eye strain. Newport Beach-based IDIO Creative Works Inc. launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $20,000 for its new Looper product. It’s created a “fashionable,” tech-enabled tassel crafted with Italian leather that attaches to standard key rings or straps and keeps track of one’s belongings. The Looper mobile app pairs with a Bluetooth sensor inside the tassel. A Looper is attached to a belonging, such as a purse, and if the owner leaves the purse behind, her smartphone and the Looper sound an alarm. Or if a person loses their phone, he or she can press a button on the Looper to make the phone ring. The startup also is exploring ways to locate a phone and a Looper through any computer.
