Rapoport Investments, LP, a Dallas, Texas-based investment company headed by Angel Investor Neal Rapoport, has completed the acquisition of a majority stake in RentEval, a real estate services smartphone app. Founded by serial entrepreneur Cheri Garcia, RentEval is poised to lead the way in modernizing the residential and commercial property management industry. Using the iOS app, or the soon to be released Android app, property managers can ditch the paper and clipboard and take advantage of the speed and reliability of their clean, mobile interface. The highly customizable system allows evaluators to add digital photos to a property report, and can automatically generate infographics that provide visual summaries of a property’s condition.

RentEval received its initial investment in 2013 from Code Authority, Inc., a North Texas software company. Earlier this year, it received an additional investment from Dallas based Tech Wildcatters, one of the top ten startup accelerator programs in the nation, as ranked by Forbes. The financial details of the majority stake acquisition have not been disclosed, but it’s been confirmed that the buyout of the shares held by Code Authority, Inc. by Rapoport Investments, LP was a six-figure transaction. Rapoport, now the majority shareholder, has indicated that RentEval will continue to operate under the leadership of Garcia. He does intend to be a hands-on investor, saying, “I am excited about the acquisition of the Code Authority stake in RentEval. After reviewing the technology, team and product, I know this will be a winning business and I’m looking forward to not just being an investor, but joining the company full time. Without CodeLaunch this may have stayed as an unfunded idea, so I’m grateful that CodeLaunch made it possible.”

Although it hasn’t been formally announced, the RentEval platform is being eyed to power a number of additional evaluation industries. As a candidate in Lewisville’s mayoral election, I’m particularly interested in how it could streamline and help bring consistency to the municipal code enforcement and restaurant inspection processes. If RentEval were to include geolocation based, aggregated data visualization abilities, where the city staff, and potentially even citizens, could see infographic summaries of entire streets and neighborhoods, that could be a game changer. The ability to instantly visualize an area’s gradual decline, or the results of neighborhood revitalization efforts, would provide constant motivation to make an effort to improve the quality of life for citizens. It would also be an effective accountability tool.

Features like these haven’t been announced as being part of RentEval’s product road map, but with a team like Garcia and Rapoport, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that they have something like this in the pipeline.

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