Home Hunting Just Got Smarter

Finding your dream home can be a daunting, exhausting process. With so many listings to sift through, it can feel impossible to find the perfect home. It’s why Asaf Rubin, a Techion alumnus, founded Localize (opens in a new tab), a tech startup that helps homebuyers harness the power of AI and big data to find their home.

The business began in Israel in 2012 under the brand name Madlan. In 2019, it rebranded as Localize and expanded to the New York City market. So far, over 40,000 aspiring homebuyers have signed up.

Potential homebuyers fill in a free, simple questionnaire about preferences for neighborhoods or boroughs, price range, and the number of bedrooms, as well as what’s most important to them in a home. Localize then scours huge amounts of real estate data from multiple sources, aggregates it, and provides the perfect suggestions for a potential homebuyer. Localize continues to gather feedback from homebuyers about the suggestions so it can find additional listings.

But it’s not just homebuyers: Localize is also a huge asset for realtors looking to give their clients a personalized touch. “We offer services that include lead cultivation, nurturing, engagement,” Localize president Omer Granot said. “They often have too many people in their system and can’t focus on everyone as much as they’d like, so they give us those leads. We introduce them to Hunter, our AI service, that then does lead qualification and user profiles.”

The Localize and Madlan workforce includes 130 people in New York City and Tel Aviv. It recently completed its $25 million Series C round, which was led by Pitango VC, Mizrahi-Tefahot Bank, and the European La Maison Partners investment club. They are soon looking to expand beyond Israel and New York City into other markets.