As West Coast-based crowdfunding platform RealtyMogul gets underway in Atlanta, we asked RealtyMogul CEO Jilliene Helman a few questions. Specifically, why the firm is making a go at the Dirty South of the American real estate lending fray. Unlike other competitors in the crowdfunding space locally—including GroundFloor.com and CrowdVested.com—RealtyMogul focuses on lending opportunities for accredited investors in commercial properties. “As far as we are aware, we are the only group in our space that has successfully executed a full capital stack transaction with both debt and equity,” Jilliene says. “We are also intensely focused on execution and are constantly growing our capital sources to allow us to provide varied sources of capital to real estate companies."

As we previously reported, RealtyMogul tapped former A10 Capital exec Chuck Taylor to helm the online lending site's operations in Atlanta. The site has so far financed more than $600M in some 265 properties across its markets, including a $49M bridge loan to Elite Street Capital for its purchase of the Metropolitan at Buckhead apartments. Typical deal sizes for equity investments range up to $5M, but can go to $50M on the debt side, Jilliene says. Does she see her platform competing against the traditional broker model? “I don’t think these raises have typically been handled by brokers but have been done by sponsors going to friends/family or other networks.”