Solidifi & Altus Group Complete Financing to Develop Lending and Insurance Data Solutions

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Solidifi Inc. announced today that it has completed an additional equity investment with Altus Group Income Fund (“Altus”). This additional capital will be used to expand Solidifi’s service offerings, including the development of replacement cost and risk analytics solutions for property insurance companies. The new services will leverage Solidifi’s core technology capabilities, Altus’ extensive proprietary commercial real estate data and expertise and Solidifi’s North American network of independent appraiser partners. Details of the investment were not released, but Altus has increased its minority position in Solidifi and joins the Board of Directors.

Providing risk management services to the property and casualty (P&C) insurance industry is a multi-billion dollar revenue opportunity for Solidifi and Altus. P&C insurers strive to improve underwriting profits by mitigating losses and reducing costs. The real-time data collected by local market residential and commercial professionals, powered by Solidifi’s property underwriting platform, provides insurers with unique risk characteristics and detailed replacement cost information to make more intelligent decisions at time of underwriting.

For example, knob and tube wiring discovered by an appraiser during the mortgage process represents a material risk for insurers, who typically have the option of relying on the homeowner to provide this information, or spending time and money to order an inspection. Solidifi can instantly confirm this information, right at the desktop of the underwriter prior to approval. Detailed property characteristics (square footage, room counts, etc.) combined with up-to-date, validated cost information provided by Altus provides an extremely accurate replacement cost estimate for the insurer.

These revolutionary new data solutions are facilitated in full partnership with local market real estate professionals, including Solidifi’s North American network of over 8,000 independent residential real estate appraisers, and Altus’ 34 offices of independent real estate consulting and professional advisory practitioners. In this tumultuous market climate, these real estate experts provide the foundation for reliable real estate analysis by contributing current, validated, and unbiased information.

"There are significant operational and risk management opportunities available for our clients by utilizing Altus’ data collected by local professionals. This comprehensive information will offer insurers a new benchmark for replacement cost accuracy,” said Jason Smith, President and CEO of Solidifi. “We anticipate that our joint relationships with respected financial institutions and Altus’ global footprint enable us to continue our rapid growth and innovation."

This financing has provided the investment required to evolve Solidifi’s property data warehouse to provide service for the P&C marketplace by leveraging its successful solutions provided to the mortgage industry. Solidifi’s solutions are built using Web 2.0 and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) technology. Property information provided by partners, appraisers, and other local professionals are tracked at the transaction level by Solidifi’s digital rights management framework to manage revenue distributions to each contributor.

Solidifi is leveraging its existing core transaction management platform to rapidly bring these solutions to market. This SaaS (Software as a Service) platform, together with proprietary data extraction and management capabilities has created an extraordinary opportunity to offer new and unique data solutions across multiple verticals, including P&C insurance.

“Solidifi’s robust technology platform, combined with Altus’ extensive database, will allow us to capitalize on this significant opportunity, needed more than ever in the current economic climate,” said Gary Yeoman, CEO of Altus Group. “The expertise and innovation within Solidifi, combined with Altus’ breadth of experience, offers the ability to rapidly bring these new opportunities to market and capitalize on as an ongoing means of growth across the globe."

This strategic partnership and capital investment complements Solidifi’s existing property valuation and collateral risk management services that provide Solidifi’s lender customers with risk analytics that leverage local market appraiser expertise and providing its residential appraiser partners with new revenue streams.

Through technological innovation, residential and commercial real estate expertise, and an extensive joint customer base, Solidifi and Altus will work to establish a comprehensive data solution suite in the P&C insurance market, and continue to expand the breadth of real estate data solutions for their customers.

About Altus Group

Altus Group Income Fund is the leading multidisciplinary provider of independent real estate consulting and professional advisory services worldwide. With a staff of over 1,200, Altus has 34 offices in 24 cities throughout Canada and 8 offices throughout the UK. Altus operates as: Altus Research, Valuation and Advisory; Altus Cost Consulting; Altus Realty Tax Consulting; Altus Geomatics; Altus InSite; Altus Capital Planning; and Altus Edwin Hill. Altus' clients include banks, financial institutions, governments, pension funds, asset and fund managers, developers and landlords, as well as companies engaged in the oil and gas industry. For more information, go to altusgroup.com.

About Solidifi Inc.

Solidifi is a leading provider of property valuation, collateral risk management and data analytic services to the North American financial services industry. Solidifi provides customers with a flexible service platform for procuring collateral valuation, data solutions, and other real estate services from marketplace vendors and appraisers, with complete transparency and data to make “incredibly smart decisions”. Solidifi currently serves leading global financial institutions and is located in Chicago, Toronto, Montreal and Calgary. Additional information about Solidifi is available at www.solidifi.com.

For more information, or to schedule an interview with Jason Smith, please contact:
Solidifi Inc.
Mike Kraemer, 905-739-1212
Director, Marketing & Communications
mkraemer@solidifi.com
www.solidifi.com
or
For more information, or to schedule an interview with Gary Yeoman, please contact:
Altus Group Income Fund
Sayla Nordin, 416-557-0939
VP, Communications and Investor Relations
altusgroupincomefund.com