Viva.com
On March 1, 2000, Kline Hawkes made its initial investment in Viva.com, contributing $3 million to a $12.5 million Series B financing.
Located in Santa Monica, Viva.com is the nation's leading interactive online leasing center in the rental housing industry.
Viva's mission is to revolutionize the rental housing industry through their central digital meeting place the "Viva Leasing Center", that facilitates live interaction and direct lease transactions between renters and lessors.
Through the Viva Leasing Center renters can anonymously list themselves as ready-to-rent and be positioned to receive direct bids from property owners and managers. Lessors can benefit by marketing their properties to an inventory of creditworthy renters, poised to make lease transactions, which in turn will enable lessors to reduce their vacancies more quickly and efficiently, and thus increase their cash flow. Viva derives revenue primarily from matching fees, which means lessors only pay for performance. For their part, renters pay no charge to use Viva's web site and are paid $100 cash incentive when they lease a property.
In early January 2000, Viva launched its site to lessors in six cities and already has registered more than 305,000 rental units. Viva is currently facilitating live lease transactions with a restricted number of renters in a beta testing period before it officially launches its site to the public in April 2000. As the year progresses, Viva will continue to launch its services throughout the US.
Klaus Koch, a Viva.com Board Observer and Principal of KHC worked closely with Viva CEO Scott Ingraham and President Allan Hunter in negotiating the terms of the Series B. Other investors in the round included: Media Technology Ventures, Rosewood Venture Group and Thomas Weisel Partners.