New York’s Metaprop joined a $4.5 million seed round for West Coast proptech firm Pest Share. Other investors included Boise, Idaho-based Capital Eleven; Reno, Nev.-based Vesta Ventures; and Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Far Out Venture Capital. In 2022, Pest Share raised a pre-seed $1 million round.
Besides the United States, Boise, Idaho-based Pest Share has leveraged technology to expand its business to Argentina, Mexico, the Philippines and some parts of Latin America. It was co-founded in 2019 by CEO Landon Cooley, whose family has been in the pest control business for decades, and Justin and Tom Clements, both of whom also have been in the same line of business.
“There is something cool about our getting on this cutting edge of the industry and bringing it to a whole new segment that has not experienced professional pest control at all,” Cooley told Commercial Observer in an interview.
Metaprop, co-founded by general partners Zach Aarons and Aaron Black in 2015, focuses on proptech startups. It has made over 150 portfolio investments and exited nearly a score. It invests out of four funds totalling $165 million. Metaprop’s recent investments include Skillit, Synco, Billy, OnSiteIQ, Doorstead and Yave.
Aarons previously worked at real estate developer Millennium Partners and has been an angel investor in the sector. He began his career at boutique investment bank PJ Solomon, working on mergers and acquisitions, as well as financial restructuring. He later served as a senior associate for ENIAC Ventures, an early-stage venture capital fund based in New York City and San Francisco.
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Block was previously chairman of Chicago-based BayRu, a U.S.-Russia ecommerce shopping and shipping specialist, and eBay.com’s exclusive drop shipping partner for Russia/CIS consumers. He also worked as commercial real estate executive at Cushman & Wakefield, the world’s largest privately held commercial real estate services firm.
Pest Share expects to use the capital to expand operations and technology development within the rental home market. It will provide cost-effective, on-demand services to residents, while reducing costs for property managers.
“I’m the fourth generation in our family in the pest control industry,” Cooley told Commercial Observer. “Between me and my co-founders, our team has robust pest control experience at this point. It’s really the new tech generation of a generational business.”
