Startup Daily

Proptech FoundIt settles on $2 million pre-Seed to put power back in the hands of home buyers

FoundIt founders Joel Tomaino and Angus Ferguson
Real estate proptech FoundIt has raised $2 million in a pre-Seed to give buyers greater insights when buying property.

The raise was backed by a strategic group of real estate experts, including Realbase cofounders Frank and Jacques Greeff, Realtairโ€™s Peter Matthews, and Propps founder Daniel Bignold.

FoundIt, the brainchild of former Domain executive Angus Ferguson and ex-Frazis Capital fund manager Joel Tomaino, combines data, technology and Australiaโ€™s top buyersโ€™ advocates to reduce the time to buy by up to 50% and give homebuyers a smarter edge.

Ferguson said there’s a $500 billion blind spot in Australian real estate: an outdated system where buyers carry the risk but don’t have the tools, data and representation sellers receive.

โ€œBuyers are currently making a 25-year financial decision, often based on three comparable sales and a brochure,โ€ he said.

โ€œMeanwhile, the seller has a professional agent, a pricing strategy and full access to data. Weโ€™re building FoundIt to change that by leveling the playing field for buyers.โ€

FoundIt pairs buyers with a local market expert as buyers agent to support them from first brief to final bid, alongside exclusive market research, and technology to accelerates the property sourcing process.

The startup is actively onboarding buyers agents and sales agents nationally, with a full consumer launch planned for late August.

The cofounders believe that demand for buyers agents will grow from 8% of sales currently to more than a quarter of all property purchases within five years.

โ€œWeโ€™re not here to sell homes, weโ€™re here to make properties move,โ€ said Ferguson.

โ€œUsing a buyersโ€™ agent is no longer a nicheโ€”itโ€™s becoming the norm. And our platform is designed to amplify the capabilities of the best operators in the country.โ€

Ferguson said the data tells its own story withย more than 70% of pre-approved buyers not actually purchasing, while the average time to taken now stretching over eight months.

โ€œThis is a market where buyers carry all the risk but none of the representation,โ€ he said.

โ€œWeโ€™ve taken what was once an under-utilised modelโ€”buyersโ€™ agenciesโ€”and weโ€™re scaling it with technology, exclusive market research and operational support.

“The Australian property market has an opportunity to catch up on global innovation. In more mature markets like the US, over 80% of property transactions already include representation on the buy side.โ€

Ferguson said the platform acts as a force multiplier for buyers agents, taking them from a solo, manual and highly localised business to a tech-enabled, national networkg with lead generation, market research and backend support.

Investor Frank Greeff from Realbase saidย FoundIt “has the team, the tech and the timing” to succeed.

“โ€œTheyโ€™re solving a massive pain point, and theyโ€™ve built a platform that can scale. Itโ€™s not just for buyersโ€”it brings alignment and efficiency across the whole ecosystem,” he said.