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Inside Real Estate has acquired ListAssist, a New Zealand-based artificial intelligence marketing startup, Inman has learned exclusively.
The deal, which comes on the heels of its purchase of Folio parent Amitree last year, aims to build on Inside Real Estate’s consumer search while driving productivity, executives said Thursday. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
“We are incredibly excited to be joining Inside Real Estate, and we’re proud to have delivered AI solutions to tens of thousands of agents and some of the biggest, most trusted brands in the industry,” ListAssist founder Chris McGoldrick said. “Our New Zealand team is inspired by the big things to come, and we can’t wait to continue providing a market-leading experience for both consumers and agents alike.”
ListAssist made its splash in the U.S. proptech market at Inman Connect Las Vegas in 2022, when founder Chris McGoldrick began exploring ideas for the fledgling company, which at the time specialized in large language model listing descriptions.
The product and company footprint grew quickly, with its latest advancement now allowing any brokerage or consumer-facing home search experience to easily integrate AI-based natural language search.
McGoldrick hosted the award for Crowd Favorite at The National Association of Realtors’ 2023 iOi Pitch Battle. It also won “Most Innovative Startup” in the Sales and Marketing category at the 2023 Proptech Association of Australia Awards.
Joe Skousen
The company’s client roster includes, among others, Howard Hanna, San Diego MLS, Christchurch, New Zealand’s VVV Real Estate and the world’s top performing RE/MAX franchise, The Ashton Real Estate Group of RE/MAX Advantage.
“This tech leads the way on AI-Search, and this next chapter will revolutionize the entire search experience,” Inside Real Estate CEO Joe Skousen said a statement. “Leveraging natural language search, image recognition, and other AI technology, in combination with the extensive experience we have in search across hundreds of thousands of websites, hundreds of millions of consumer experiences and trillions of data points, unlocks a new world of data and insights.
“The solutions will empower our customers to unlock the most powerful and engaging search experiences for their clients, with unparalleled speed, accuracy and engagement,” Skousen added. “It’s a huge win for us all.”
ListAssist’s software will find its way via deep integration into the back-end of BoldTrail CRM. This will empower users “to generate smarter search alerts to boost engagement, foster trust and deliver a better overall experience,” the announcement said.
Natural language search technology isn’t unique to ListAssist, but its portability — and McGoldrick’s skill at navigating the U.S. housing market — provided it with a competitive advantage, especially for a larger player seeking to implement the feature.
In a January 2023 review of ListAssist, the company was lauded for its flexibility and computer vision-based search.
Chris McGoldrick
“There’s little to weigh down ListAssist,” the review states. “[I]t’s lightweight and the user experience never distracts from the product’s primary directive. Using photos to extract physical information about the home is a crazy-sharp use of computer vision tech, as it never leaves the user without a writing prompt.”
In June, Inside Real Estate overhauled its kvCORE brand in a bid to unify features and branding after years of growth and acquisitions, including popular industry competitor BoomTown in 2023. Its new BoldTrail platform represents a seamless business solution for more than 400,000 agents it serves.
In February, Inside Real Estate released a product update for its Vitals Dashboard, designed to measure key metrics for agents.
