Immigrants face a lot of uncertainty and challenges when settling into a new country. Many of the routine things that citizens overlook like obtaining a driver’s license are a lot more complex when you’re an immigrant. Support from a community can tremendously help and technology can accelerate the acclimation process for those who have left their native lands. Homeis is the first digital platform that empowers immigrant communities, helping them to connect with one another. Using the Homeis app, immigrants can connect with people who share the same culture, language, and interests, and receive information and recommendations about service providers, events, jobs, real estate, and more. Homeis will be rolling out a state of the art fintech and digital service for immigrants because navigating finances in a new country is always a challenge.
AlleyWatch sat down with CEO and Cofounder Ran Harnevo, a serial entrepreneur (5min Media acquired by AOL), to learn more about how his personal experience as an immigrant led him to launch Homeis to help individual immigrant communities, the company’s future growth plans, and latest round of funding, which brings the total funding to $16M over two rounds.
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
After an initial seed round of $4M, we raised $12M in our Series A led by Spark Capital and Canaan.
Tell us about the product or service that Homeis offers.
Homeis is the first digital platform built to serve and empower immigrant communities around the world. It was founded by immigrants, for immigrants. Through the Homeis app (new website coming soon), you can discover your city and find information and recommendations for trusted service providers and events, connect with new friends nearby, explore dating and relationships with people who share your culture, interests, and needs; and even find jobs, real estate, lawyers, doctors – all vetted by a community you trust, and in your own language.
What inspired you to start Homeis?
Being an immigrant myself, empowering immigrants is a personal mission – one which I believe is timely and important. We created Homeis because we know firsthand how deep and complicated the experience of being foreign-born is, and we are committed to supporting immigrants wherever they are, making technology work for them and fulfilling their very special needs.
I cofounded Homeis after successfully building the industry’s first online syndication platform (5min Media), which I went on to sell to AOL. I then joined corporate America as Global President of AOL’s Video division. After making things work in corporate, I decided to go back to my roots and build a company that uses technology for a positive social cause.
How is Homeis different?
Homeis is the first-ever global consumer product created specifically for foreign-born communities. Traditionally, immigrants living abroad tried to connect offline or by using generic products like WhatsApp, Meetup, and others. We believe that being foreign-born is a deep and complicated experience and a big part of one’s identity. As a result, we believe that generic communication tools cannot really empower and help immigrants at the depth they need.
Homeis was built with the experience of being foreign-born at its core and has a unique mission: to build a better internet for immigrants. We are creating a verticalized product that caters to very specific needs we believe generic products cannot meet. This is an opportunity for us.
What market does Homeis target and how big is it?
The service was created for all foreign-born people, no matter how new, old or tech-savvy they are. Our vision is to touch the lives of every immigrant around the globe, and we’ve built a simple and friendly experience to cater to them all.
There are 260 million immigrants globally, and we also believe that a lot of first-generation people would use our platform. It’s an immense market that will grow to at least 500 million by 2050.
Defining the immigration market is difficult since the number of interactions around it is immense. For example, the remittance market for immigrants only is $625B annually. Immigrants are making their most important financial decisions based on their friends’ recommendations. We believe the opportunity here is simply gigantic.
What’s your business model?
Our focus is on building the most effective and authentic resource for foreign-born communities around the globe. So for now, Homeis is focused on growth as the highest priority.
However, immigrants have a lot of specific needs that we believe the platform can support down the road: wiring money back home, finding better insurance (health, car, home, etc.), visa and legal guidance, building a credit score, taking loans, and many other services that are needed by immigrants.
In the last few years, there has been a huge growth in companies building FinTech products for this audience. Homeis will be heavily integrated with FinTech and digital services for immigrants. Our vision as a company is to build a diversified business model that is not relying on advertising (which will be integrated as well).
Immigrants are facing a lot of challenges that we know and are familiar with from firsthand experience and marrying them with the best service providers who understand their special needs will be the core of our monetization strategy.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term? What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
In the next six months, we plan to use the funding to expand to serve more and more immigrant communities in the U.S. and across the globe. Since we founded Homeis in 2017, we have served over 400,000 immigrants in only a few selected local communities, and we’re excited to continue our expansion with a focus on Latino communities in the U.S. this year.
Our next community, launching in October, will be for foreign-born Mexicans all over the US. We will then expand to all other Spanish-speaking nationalities in 2019 and then expand to Europe in 2020.
Our next community, launching in October, will be for foreign-born Mexicans all over the US. We will then expand to all other Spanish-speaking nationalities in 2019 and then expand to Europe in 2020.
What was the funding process like?
When we founded homeis we carefully chose two VCs we love working with and respect dearly – Spark Capital and Canaan. The idea behind the Seed round was to build a product with our board and have the same investors continue with us in our journey. I’m very happy it turned out this way. Their trust is a validation of the work we’ve done collectively, and having the same investors lead the A round made the funding process easier.
On top of Spark and Canaan, we added Abstract VC, which is a small and excellent firm from the Bay Area, and private angels such as Alexis Ohanian, who we believe can strategically help Homeis.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
Our biggest challenge was to convince investors that we can scale user growth while launching new communities and replicate our success in targeted markets. Our bet as management was to focus on the quality of the product and prove its success in a relatively small set of audiences. We’ve looked for investors who understand that model, and believe that our success is replicable
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
Penetration and retention, period. Homeis was able to prove that we penetrate at least 30% of the market in the first few months and that our users come back to the product and are passionate about it. That was the core of our strategy from day one, and we were able to prove Homeis does both.
What’s your favorite restaurant in the city?
At Homeis we have lists of restaurants that users in each community really like. As an Israeli, I’ll have to choose Mogador in Williamsburg, which is one of the most recommended restaurants in my community, and rightly so…
