Six years ago, two recent college grads moved to Austin to launch a company out of a decaying office. Their wild idea: build a mobile-first app that can get virtually anything delivered to you with just a few taps.
Five years and $38 million dollars in funding later, the founding duo of Zac Maurais and Ben Doherty have built Favor to nearly 100 employees (in addition to thousands of contract runners). In addition, they transitioned the company to an executive team, which ultimately led to an acquisition by grocery giant HEB. An exit that exceeded their wildest dreams.
Much of the service-based app economy based out of Silicon Valley can be distilled to an Uber-for-x service, a variation of the now ubiquitous ride-hailing app that fuels our on-demand culture. Favor took the on-demand food delivery idea that was dominated by desktop-based interfaces, and moved it forward by focusing on a mobile experience and directly engaging with local businesses to get them signed up.
Maurais and Doherty are poised to do the same thing for real estate as they did for local restaurants by creating Sunroom, an app-based rental experience focused on getting ever-increasing numbers of Austinites to their next home faster and easier than ever before.
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