If “location, location, location” is still the mantra for real estate then “crowdlending, crowdlending, crowdlending” could be the key to selling a “location” in the future.

That’s what a duo of Triangle entrepreneurs are betting at GroundFloor. So far, so good.

Co-founders Brian Dally and Nick Bhargava want to revolutionize real estate financing through “crowdlending” with investors offering up as little as $100 in hopes of making much better returns from bank savings account. (A graphic put together by the firm shows how investors can make 10- to 20-times traditional returns through crowdlending deals.)

And they are off to a sizzling start, having just closed a “heavily oversubscribed” seed round of $300,000.

Plus they just closed a second real estate deal in Georgia.

They hope to be doing business in North Carolina soon.

The first property is an $82,000 house that was a “fix-and-flip.” Investors in the deal through GroundFloor were offered 8 percent secured interest.

The second was a $440,000 town home that offered investors 11 percent secured interest.

Investments ranged from $100 to $5,000.

WRALTechWire caught up with Dally to talk about the ground-shaking prospects in real estate for the Raleigh-based firm.

  • So what is early performance telling you – is your plan holding up? Is there a market? If so bigger than expected?

Like any other lean, agile startup, some of our hypotheses have been upheld and others have been adjusted. The evidence shows there is definitely a very large market for what we are doing, on both sides of the marketplace.

  • Why Georgia for first two deals? 

In 2013, Georgia put an exemption to its securities regulations in place to allow crowd financing within limited and carefully circumscribed conditions. North Carolina will consider similar legislation in the upcoming session. Georgia’s framework provided us with the most capital efficient way to get to market so we could validate our hypotheses.

  • How long before you can do a deal in North Carolina? Still working on regulatory approval?

We expect to be in position to serve North Carolina this summer.

  • What about other states – what are your growth plans?

The steps required to bring GroundFloor to states beyond Georgia are well underway. We don’t have news about that to share today, but should have some soon.

  • How many people now on board, and are you hiring? If so in what areas?

Our core team consists of two co-founders and two early employees, both of whom worked with me directly at Republic Wireless and joined us last summer. We’re planning to hire a Ruby developer, a marketing manager and a business analyst.

  • Any plans to raise any additional funding?

Just last week, we just closed our seed round of $300,000. It was heavily oversubscribed and we’re very pleased with the investors who have joined us along the way. We’re planning to raise another round this summer.

  • What’s the biggest lessons you and your partner have learned to this point?

Philosophically, in our line of work, the more sure one is about something, the bigger blind spot that probably is. Practically, we’ve been reminded what a blessing it is to be surrounded by good people who can and want to help us. It has made all the difference.

  • What’s been the biggest obstacle to overcome? Skepticism?

Fatigue! Startups are hard. There could never be enough hours in the day, or enough of the right talent available at the right time, to do flawlessly what we all do as best we can.

Back Story

Among the investors so far is Capitol Broadcasting’s American Underground. Capitol is the parent company of WRALTechWire. Also listed in an announcement formally announcing the funding is Bandwidth Labs, the investment arm of Bandwidth.com where Dally once worked.

Dally is a former Bandwidth executive who helped that firm launch Republic Wireless, a provider of voice and data communications.

Dally co-founded the firm last fall along with Bhargava. The two met at NC IDEA’s Groundwork Labs in Durham. Bhargava has a finance background and was an early supporter of the crowdfunding concept. He has worked for or with the Financial Services Roundtable, SEC, FINRA, TD Waterhouse and RBC Financial Group.

The company’s goal remains nothing less than to “disrupt” the “$240 billion commercial real estate finance market.”