Cartavi closes first round of venture capital funding

Cloud-based document sharing service provider Cartavi has completed a Series A round of financing that the 3-year-old, real estate-focused company says will allow it to expand its operations and accelerate the development of its cloud-based framework and mobile applications.

Among the individual investors that bought into the Naperville, Ill.-based company in this round of financing include Gian Fulgoni, executive chairman and co-founder of Web metrics firm comScore Inc., Jai Shekhawat, CEO and co-founder of vendor software provider Fieldglass Inc., and Mike Gamson, senior vice president of global solutions at LinkedIn.

Chicago-based venture capital fund I2A Fund, with the participation of FireStarter Fund, OCA Ventures and New World Ventures, led the early-stage investment round.

Cartavi helps real estate professionals manage documents from creation through signature and archival, allowing users to sign documents electronically using DocuSign. Users can access Cartavi's service via desktop or one the company's mobile app, available for iPhone, iPad, and Android phones and tablets.

"The business of real estate is in a state of transition as both brokerages and agents strive for enhanced customer service, and the efficiencies and savings that mobile and paperless solutions promise to bear," said Glenn Shimkus, Cartavi co-founder and CEO, in a statement.

Cartavi claims to offer "the industry's most complete mobile solution for managing documents," with the greatest coverage of mobile devices used by real estate professionals.

CMO Paul Koziarz said more than 50 percent of Cartavi daily logins take place through native mobile apps, and that the company has seen an 85 percent increase in the past 60 days in the number of iPads using the app.

"Cartavi's approach to managing paperless transactions, combined with the product vision and experience of the management team, made our decision to invest an easy one," said Kapil Chaudhary, I2A's managing director and co-founder.

Dotloop, another player in the real estate paperless transaction management service space, announced today that it has signed up the Arizona Association of Realtors and hired industry vet Chad Humphrey to help the company target state associations and MLSs.