Since his childhood, Nate Robert-Eze has loved building things. This passion led him to study architecture, create 3D visualizations for real estate companies, and ultimately found a startup revolving around an AI-powered property visualization software.
This startup, dubbed Path, provides integrated tools that enable real estate agencies to offer virtual reality walkthrough tours of their properties. Using the software, prospective buyers or renters can easily view any property at any time, and real estate agents enjoy a lightened workload as it becomes less necessary for them to be on-site to give tours.
Within the virtual tours, prospective residents can chat with an AI real estate agent that can answer questions about the property in real time—such as what the square footage of a room might be, or what amenities are near the property.
Prospective residents can also visualize any piece of furniture or material within a property through instantaneous generative AI, with the ability to customize anything from backsplash tiles in the kitchen to a whole room’s furniture layout.
If a potential resident wants to move forward with buying or renting a property, they can ultimately schedule an in-person meeting with a real estate agent through Path’s software.
While Path’s integrated tools simplify the home-touring process for prospective residents, they also make the home-selling process more efficient for real estate agencies.
Path aggregates data trends based on the information asked of the AI agents across properties, helping real estate agencies inform and shape their marketing and sales strategies accordingly. Real estate agencies can even take advantage of Path’s AI-powered tools themselves by asking an AI chatbot questions about the data, such as how many prospective buyers have a certain budget.
“Imagine what types of decisions you can make about marketing, sales, even product that you’re building, when having all of this information from actual consumers that have the intent of buying or renting,” Robert-Eze said.
An economical solution to expensive problems
Path offers its software tools through a monthly subscription model. Real estate agencies pay a fee per building or neighborhood that is based on whether the building is already built or still in development.
The integrated nature of Path’s tools provides an economical and effective solution that solves an array of common problems faced by real estate agencies from marketing to actually selling homes.
Visitors often browse real estate agencies’ websites for just one to one and a half minutes due to confusion or an inability to quickly locate what they’re looking for, Robert-Eze said.
“There has to be something that’s done about that,” Robert-Eze said. “That’s sort of the mission we’ve taken: to eliminate that buyer confusion by greeting someone in a virtual space and being able to answer all of their questions in somewhere that they can actually explore themselves as well.”
To that end, when agencies have Path’s tools on their website, people tend to browse the virtual experience for about 20 minutes.
A similar increase in engagement when using Path’s tools is also seen in the speed with which real estate agencies sell properties. Path’s partners have seen properties selling 40% faster once they have implemented the startup’s software.
For real estate agencies and developers, this increase in engagement amounts to crucial savings. Real estate developers could be losing $16,000 per day per unit when larger properties or neighborhoods with over 100 units sit on the market, Robert-Eze said.
Charting the future of Path
Path’s future is grounded in a rapidly expanding virtual reality industry and a robust real estate market to capture.
The virtual reality industry is growing at about 40% annually, Robert-Eze said, and Path’s AI tools blend the rising technology with a sizable market.
QUICK BITS
Startup: Path
Founder: Nate Robert-Eze
Founded: 2024
Team size: 5
Location: Charlotte
Website: www.trypath.io
Funding: Pre-seed
Currently, Path is prioritizing partnerships with agencies and developers focused on the $22 billion luxury real estate market, Robert-Eze said. In the future, he said the startup plans to expand into the broader, trillion-dollar international real estate market.
“I see an international reach,” Robert-Eze said. “I see people adopting this at a very rapid rate.”
Path is raising $1.5 million in pre-seed funding, and prospective investors can schedule a meeting with Robert-Eze through his Calendly. Real estate companies interested in joining the startup’s pilot program to access the software can fill out a preliminary questionnaire.
