The title of this article might be a bit misleading as we already have been working with clients in North America. Since January 2017, we are not only officially registered in the United States but are also serving a growing number of real estate businesses in North America.
The whole team, from the two co-founders (Xavier Claes and Axel Guzman) to our web developers, account managers and of course our 3D artists and designers, has been working very hard to make this dream happen. Not only are we proud to share this exciting news, but there’s also a great back story of how the co-founders met.
The story of Drawbotics: from hockey rinks to real estate marketing.
The story of Drawbotics started some 15 years ago when Xavier and Axel met on the ice at one of the hockey rinks in Belgium. From pucks and sticks to a fast growing company of 75 employees, the story of Drawbotics is first and foremost the story of a friendship. Passionate about ice hockey, Xavier and Axel played together from their pee wee teams to international tournaments for the Belgian National Team.
After a few professional experiences on their own, they met up again in 2014 and started up Drawbotics in an old carpentry workshop. They were looking for a way to bring innovation to the real estate industry. The mission of the company was soon defined : "Make great marketing services accessible to real estate professionals". That meant not only producing quality services but also finding a way to make them accessible through a transparent approach, competitive prices and an online platform. In may of 2014, to help them with that mission, Stan joined Drawbotics to lead the tech strategy of the company as well as the development of the platform.
Over the course of the next 3 years, the portfolio of services offered by Drawbotics continued to grow and became increasingly more qualitative, while keeping prices low. Drawbotics now proudly offers more than 14 services for real estate agents and development companies.
Accessibility of services didn't solely mean competitive prices, it was also about finding a new and innovative way for clients to order and download these tools. With that in mind, the first platform of its kind was developed by a team of front-end and back-end engineers. A platform through which clients could order all the services needed, follow-up on projects via a custom dashboard and even request modifications through a collaborative review studio.
A long awaited launch in North America.
In 3 years of existence, Drawbotics has completed more than 35,000 projects for over 800 clients ranging from local brokerages and agencies to some of Europe's largest development companies. After expanding our activities and quickly spreading the concept throughout the old continent, we soon realized that it was time for us to launch in North America.
Our successful launch was made possible thanks to our viral 3D floor plans and a deal with Belcube investment fund.
3D floor plans of famous TV shows.
As a side project, we created 3D floor plans of famous tv shows. These super detailed floor plans quickly went viral when they were covered and shared by popular outlets such as Buzzfeed, Business Insider, Mashable, Gizmodo, etc.
First and foremost, it was a fun project that enabled us to showcase our 3D floor plans and our attention to detail, but they also allowed us to get noticed by several renowned real estate companies. Celebrities of the TV shows even joined in on the conversations via Twitter and Reddit.
We are already working on our next entertainment project and will share it with you as soon as it is ready.
A deal with the Belcube investment fund.
In order to help us in our launch, both financially and strategically, we partnered up with the Belcube Investment Fund.
Drawbotics was able to bootstrap its growth so far and in order to ensure a successful launch and strong start in North America, we decided to raise some capital with the Belgian investment fund. This first round was lead by the seasoned entrepreneur Jean Zurstrassen. Having co-founded Skynet, Keytrade Bank, Tunz.com and invested in many different startups, we are confident that his expertise will help us going forward.
What the future holds for Drawbotics.
Our goal is to keep growing our portfolio of services to ensure you can find all the marketing and communication services you need for your real estate business.
As described previously in this article, it's not only about delivering new marketing services, but we also strive to improve our platform with your feedback and create new online tools for a more efficient experience.
We will also open new offices in New York, NY later this year and look forward to meeting you at one of the different real estate events in Europe and North America.
If one day you’d like to play hockey with our team or do some laps around the rink, we'd be happy to lace up our old skates! Of course we can also meet you for a hot cup of coffee to discuss real estate marketing.
Make sure to leave a comment to tell us about your real estate story. You can also send us a message on our website directly. We look forward to meeting you!
