A title industry startup aiming to cut closing time and costs for homebuyers via blockchain technology finds itself on the receiving end of a new venture capital raise to support its expansion.

Titl, a Miami-based fintech, announced a seed funding round of $2.5 million, which was led by Cofounders Capital and FIT Ventures. Titl seeks to automate the records search process through artificial intelligence and simultaneously track property-information findings on a secure and verifiable blockchain ledger to create a digital land registry. 

"We are thrilled to invest in this technology and team. AI-powered applications like this create real demonstrable value for customers and investors," Cofounders' partner and software industry veteran David Gardner said in a press release. 

Gardner will also join Titl's board per terms of the agreement.  

Thanks to the cash infusion, Titl will use the new funds to scale operations outside its home state of Florida, moving first into Georgia, Maryland and Connecticut. Titl hopes to expand to as many as 20 states by the end of 2026. 

"We set out to find an extremely niche, inefficient process where we could create a significant impact and the title process was it," said Titl co-founder Ori Ohayon. "Titl is unifying property ownership verification and transfer through a centralized, digitized U.S. registry. We're not digitizing yesterday's workflow, we're reimagining ownership for the digital age."

How Titl hopes to change the title industry

Through its software, Ohayon's firm expects to standardize and connect title records "bringing speed, auditability, and security to an industry that historically hasn't had it." 

Today's processes may elevate fraud risk due to cumbersome and sometimes manual, time-consuming tasks to obtain fragmented land-records data, with costs ultimately passed down to homebuyers, it said. The company and its backers say its technology can shorten title-verification times by making the information available at the start of the homebuying process instead of the close. 

"FIT Ventures is excited to join the founders of Titl on their journey to help modernize an antiquated industry as they build new, essential infrastructure for American land registries," said Brian Becker, partner at the VC investment firm.

Before starting Titl, Ohayon worked as an investment banker for several years, helping to build settlement solutions and identify workflow inefficiency at the likes of Goldman Sachs and TD Securities. He co-founded the company alongside real estate developer Tory Ricalis, a blockchain technology advocate with a background in project management. 

Since launching in 2022, the fintech has rolled out various products to offer expedited title report delivery and automated production. Titl also makes available a surveillance service that monitors property records and a pre-sales check to identify potential obstacles to closing.

The re-emergence of blockchain

Titl's announcement comes as the home finance industry sees some of the enthusiasm for blockchain return to the fore over the past 12 months. 

A hot topic of mortgage industry conversation earlier this decade, blockchain saw the spotlight and investment dollars move away amid an uncertain regulatory outlook and the rise of AI, but recent attention paid to it in the home finance space coincides with the Trump administration's support for digital currencies. 

Many blockchain advocates point out the overall efficiencies and security benefits the technology brings to differentiate it from its association with cryptocurrency, and home finance-related businesses are finding ways to incorporate it in some of their practices.  

Among the companies in the mortgage industry most gung-ho is Figure Technologies, whose investment into the technology dates back years. In October, the company rolled out its own blockchain-native equity for trading on its platform.