Our investment in Ownright

In 2022, Robert Saunders had his first experience with residential real estate. Like many Canadians, he didn’t realize he needed a real estate lawyer until he was well on his way to making an offer. He found a lawyer—but quickly discovered that the closing process was surprisingly convoluted, manual, and time-consuming. As a Shopify engineer and digital native, Robert saw the potential to leverage technology to streamline the experience. He soon set out to simplify home buying for the next generation of homeowners.

Each year in Canada, there are approximately 500,000 residential real estate sales and 1.8 million refinancings. These transactions—representing billions of dollars—are typically handled by hundreds of small law firms operating on legacy software. For most people, buying and selling their home is the largest financial transaction of their lives. Yet, they are frequently left in the dark for the weeks or months between offer and close. This can be particularly stressful for first-time homebuyers. The opacity in the process stems from it being largely undigitized — bogged down by paperwork, fragmented communication, and in-person coordination with realtors, brokers, lenders, insurers, inspectors, and all the other stakeholders that may be involved.

Over the past decade, we’ve seen platforms emerge to streamline mortgages, insurance, and other aspects of homeownership—but the legal side remains underserved. Ownright is changing that by building a platform that delivers a better experience not only for homeowners and their advisors, but also, critically, for the lawyers who handle home sales and refinancings.

We first invested in Ownright’s pre-seed round in May 2023, driven by a core belief that residential real estate transactions remain unnecessarily opaque and analog. It was still early, but we were compelled by an exceptional founding team taking on a fragmented market and zeroing in on a repetitive, high-stakes step in the homeownership journey. 

The founders bring a complementary mix of experience and skills to tackle this challenge. At the helm is Robert Saunders, a technical founder with a strong, product-driven vision. He saw the potential for AI and automation to better connect all the parties in residential transactions and bring much-needed transparency and efficiency to the process. Joel Fox adds operational expertise, with a background in finance, consulting, and innovation strategy and previous experience founding an e-commerce marketplace. Benjamin Berry, a seasoned real estate lawyer with thousands of home closings under his belt, plays a critical role as the company’s first lawyer and has ensured the product is deeply informed by industry expertise.

Since launching, Ownright has processed over $750 million in transactions across Ontario, establishing itself as a trusted partner to homebuyers, sellers, leading real estate brokerages and proptech platforms. The company has grown from a founding team of three to a team of 20, quadrupled in the last year, and rebranded from Doormat to Ownright. They’ve executed on their product vision, building a proprietary platform that dramatically improves the efficiency, accuracy, and speed of their legal team—while also enhancing sales, marketing, and customer relationships. The platform is intuitive for clients and agents alike, making it easy to track a transaction’s progress and manage all the associated documents and dollars. With over 600 five-star Google reviews, it’s clear they’re building something that resonates.

All of this is why we’re excited to lead Ownright’s $4.5M Seed round and thrilled to be part of their next chapter. While focus is essential in the early days, we see enormous potential to build upon the data-rich foundation Ownright has built, particularly with the advances in automation and generative AI. There’s a clear path to expand their product to deliver even more value to everyone involved in residential transactions in Canada and beyond.

Keep an eye on this team—and if you’re buying, selling, or refinancing a home in Ontario, check them out.