For San Angelo native Christian Garcia, moving to San Antonio in 2019 was a done deal after touring Geekdom, a startup community and co-working space based in downtown San Antonio. That decision paid off for the first-time founder.
Garcia is the CEO of Developmate, a software platform that simplifies real estate due diligence for developers. Earlier in 2022, he began to develop his startup idea as a participant in Geekdom’s incubator program. Garcia then completed Geekdom’s pre-accelerator program just before competing in San Antonio’s largest cash-prize pitch competition for startups.
While attending Geekdom’s pre-accelerator, Garcia gained a technical co-founder and COO in Maxwell Kennady. After only six months in operation, Developmate also had over $70,000 in sales from its first customers.
Garcia advanced as one of five finalists in the Oct. 21 TechFuel pitch competition. After giving his first public pitch, Developmate won second place and $22,500 in the annual non-dilutive, three-tiered $100,000 cash-prize pitch competition that helps emerging tech entrepreneurs launch innovative companies.
Developmate streamlines data collection for better developer decisions
Developmate is a software platform that automates data collection on more than 35 categories of information related to a specific real estate location. Information on zoning, neighborhoods, available builder incentives, and more is gathered in one place to help developers decide on parcels of land for new real estate projects.
Garcia understands real estate developers’ challenges as he experienced these same difficulties as a teen working with his father, who built new construction homes. He studied accounting and real estate at San Angelo State University and took classes in GIS mapping. After leaving home, the founder started as an economic development analyst for the San Angelo Chamber of Commerce. Over the next six years, Garcia would work on multiple multi-million-dollar real estate projects.
“Processes in real estate were not as efficient and optimized as I had imaged,” Garcia said. “I found myself doing things repeatedly, so I started thinking about streamlining the development process.”
Developmate’s first product is DealMap, an all-in-one mapping solution that tracks hyperlocal macro and micro data needed for real estate development deals. Garcia created DealMap to collect and keep all real estate development due diligence data in one place. That time savings for developers is from “not having to gather information from 40 to 50 websites,” Garcia said.
A developer can find themselves in a yearlong process trying to rezone an area for development. Developmate can map locations to show historically how long it takes to get a particular land parcel rezoned. Data automation, plus doing studies using this data, helps developers quickly understand where the concentration of permits are pulled in a city and for how much.
“Developmate can show where investments are happening in a city, Garcia said. “For a developer new to the area to understand this quickly, it’s knowledge that’s decades in the gathering.”
Next steps for Developmate: Scaling operations and more product launches
The startup is already active in San Antonio’s market and is on target to hit about $100,000 in revenue by the end of this year. Garcia said he plans to scale Developmate to other cities across the U.S.
“We anticipate more products in our pipeline,” Garcia said. “Our mission is to build an all-in-one solution for real estate development, one app at a time.”
Developmate is hiring a front-end developer from the latest Codeup developer BootCamp cohort to add more features to DealMap for rollout next year.
“DealMap version 2 will get us to a good place where the platform can generate more revenue,” Garcia said. “Once we get there, we’ll look at a capital raise.”
The startup plans to stay in San Antonio, hire more team members, and work out of Geekdom’s startup office spaces in the downtown co-working community.
“Christian has navigated our prescribed member journey with great passion and drive in less than one year,” said Charles Woodin, Geekdom CEO. “He ideated through a Startup Weekend, cultivated his idea in our incubator program, shaped it during our pre-accelerator, and is now scaling it. I couldn’t be more excited to see where he takes Developmate next.”
The featured image is of Developmate co-founders Christian Garcia (left) and Maxwell Kennady. They won second place in the 2022 TechFuel pitch competition. Photo courtesy Developmate.
