A Seattle-based company called Desk has secured $800,000 in funding to develop artificial intelligence technology that handles contract management tasks for real estate professionals. The startup positions its solution as a way to enhance agent productivity rather than eliminate their roles entirely.
Leading the investment round is Martin Tobias from Incisive Ventures, with additional backing from PSL’s Geoff Entress and Tushar Garg, who serves as CEO of Flyhomes.
The platform functions as an AI-powered transaction coordinator, managing administrative responsibilities including monitoring contract timelines, creating documentation, and preparing signature packages. According to CEO and co-founder Gideon Sylvan, the technology merges comprehensive contract knowledge with practical expertise from working real estate professionals in specific markets.
Sylvan explained that while agents typically want to avoid paperwork, many prefer handling it themselves rather than experiencing delays from traditional assistants. The company’s approach aims to eliminate this bottleneck.
The software has attracted over 500 real estate agents throughout the Seattle region, including two board members from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service. The platform currently handles more than 100 completed transactions monthly, with error rates below 0.2% of total deals.
Founded this year, Desk is also pursuing brokerages as clients to assist with maintaining transaction documentation.
Sylvan credited the February launch of Claude 3.7 as a pivotal moment, significantly improving AI’s ability to accurately analyze and understand real estate contracts. This includes challenging scenarios such as handwritten signatures and non-standard clauses. He described the advancement as transforming complex contract assistance from a future possibility into something that surpasses human performance.
While various companies are attempting to eliminate the need for real estate agents altogether, Sylvan believes AI is more likely to serve as the operational backbone. He characterized real estate work as relationship-driven, involving quick phone conversations and brief text exchanges. Trust between agents drives deal completion, he noted, while the associated paperwork represents an inevitable target for AI automation.
Sylvan and co-founder Stewart Renehan previously created Lotside, a platform described as resembling Zillow but focused on house flippers. Though it didn’t achieve major success, the venture maintains 20,000 users per month, according to Sylvan.
Sylvan’s background includes establishing a U.S. brokerage, while Renehan headed data science at PushSpring, a marketing technology company that T-Mobile acquired in 2019.
The funding will support Desk’s mission to streamline real estate transaction workflows by automating time-consuming administrative tasks that don’t require personal agent-to-agent interaction. The company’s technology demonstrates how artificial intelligence can augment professional services without necessarily displacing the human professionals who provide them.
With proven accuracy metrics and growing adoption among real estate professionals in a major metropolitan market, Desk represents an emerging category of AI tools designed to work alongside industry professionals rather than replace them entirely.