Overview of the project
CoVEST Capital is a firm where real-estate developers (sponsors) reach out to investors to source investments for projects. Before the application of CoVEST Capital was incepted it was becoming difficult for the developers to keep up with investors and track the progress of investment via emails, messages, or other sources. This meant missed opportunities and a tedious process of progress tracking. At the same time, these manual interventions gave room for errors and the tracking was inconsistent. What was required was a platform where the sponsors and investors could collaborate and optimize the process of investment tracking without delving manually too much.
Tools
– Teams Meeting
– Slack and JIRA
Architecture
– Monolithic
Integrations
– DocuSign
– Twilio
Technologies & Integration
– Angular
– Java
About CoVEST
Capital
Capital
CoVEST Capital worked on a Real Estate project to streamline the collaboration process between sponsors (developers) and investors to optimize investment in projects developers work on. It is established to capitalize on the growing market potential to facilitate ownership transition through acquisition, expansion, and the roll-up of businesses. It invests in businesses having revenues between A$5m and $50m after assessing the profitability ratio.
Business
background
background
CoVEST Capital came to us to develop an application where the developers (sponsors) and investors could work on a project together. This was a tenant-based project requirement where sponsors and investors had their portal from where they could interact. With the portal CoVEST Capital stakeholders wanted us to allow the investors to either commit an amount to the sponsor or simply show interest with a certain amount. One of the most important features they wanted us to implement was the integration of DocuSign with which they could sign contracts and legal binding documents all within the application.
Timeline ⸻
Brains behind the application
What Were the Significant Modules Implemented for Investment Collaboration?
The project has two major modules viz. Sponsor and Investor. The sponsor module lists out the various projects the developer works on along with sending out DocuSign agreements to the investor. The other one is the investor module for investing in the project and accepting or rejecting the investment proposal.
Sponsor/Developer Portal
This profile streamlines the developers’ struggle of collaborating with investors on funding tracking. With the sponsor login/profile, the developers can negotiate with the investors on how much the investors can fund a project. There are various types of projects the sponsors work on.
These projects are either open to direct investment or instead of funding straightaway the investors can express interest in associating with a project.
Here are the different types of modules or projects.
Open for Investment
These projects are already under development and investors can directly invest in them.
Open for Pledge
Investors express their interest to spend a certain amount without committing to it.
Coming Soon
Projects have not yet started and investors are not sure on how much they want to invest.
New Project Listing
Sponsors have these in pipeline and investors can express their interest in investing in them.
Open for Investment
These projects are already under development and investors can directly invest in them.
Coming Soon
Projects have not yet started and investors are not sure on how much they want to invest.
Open for Pledge
Investors express their interest to spend a certain amount without committing to it.
New Project Listing
Sponsors have these in pipeline and investors can express their interest in investing in them.
The sponsor has a list of investors they are associated with and based on their preferences they can select with which investor the sponsor would like to collaborate with on a certain project. Once the request is sent to the investor, they receive a request from sponsor.
Investor Portal
This portal addresses the investment streamlining ensuring there are no missed opportunities and sponsors and investors are on the same page. In their profile, investors can see the requested Project Size (in $), Target IRR, Target Equity Multiplier, Target Cash on Cash, Minimum Investment, and Estimated Hold Period. The investors can also see the financial information associated with the project like Development Budget, 10-year goals, and Operating Pro Forma.
Going through all these details the investor can commit to the investment.
in Client’s words!
“Our financial information is synced with the application with Google Sheets. It allows our sponsors to stay one step ahead and not manage the financial information manually. Sunflower’s approach was very professional, and we were delighted with the way they approached the project. We are glad we chose you to be our technology partner.“
Kymberli Cassidy
Project Manager
Process Flow for Making Investments
In the process flow, there is a complete flow of project as in how the developer initiates the proposal to how the investor makes investments in their selected projects.
Process after investor sends investment request to sponsor
Sponsor gets a notification that an investor wants to invest an amount for a project. They can review whether they want to accept the investment request, decline it or suggest an adjustment amount to the investor. If sponsor accepts/declines the request investor gets a notification for same. In case the sponsor asks for adjustment amounts, the investor can make their recommendations.
DocuSign for e-signature
If the sponsor accepts the investment amount by the investor, they can simply send a document for agreement. They can do this in two ways – either upload a file from their device or use the DocuSign template which the sponsor has designed.
Challenges and Resolution for
DocuSign Implementation
DocuSign Implementation
Since the client wanted to integrate DocuSign within the application, we started working on it. However, as
the module proceeded, we struggled immensely with its application. Since no other Real Estate project we
researched had this integration, we had to come up with a first-hand solution.
There were two issues regarding DocuSign implementation.
Getting Template of DocuSign
To overcome this challenge, we went through the documentation of DocuSign, where we came across webhooks (an HTTP request). With the help of webhooks, we were able to grab the data. Also, we used Envelope ID (a lengthy, unique identifier generated for every envelope by DocuSign) in the URL when viewing the document details. We track each template’s information based on Envelope ID with which we get DocuSign template.
Integration of DocuSign
For DocuSign integration, we created a DocuSign account from where we generated DocuSign key. The DocuSign setting was updated to connect with our application using a developer account. After this, we started the process of post key integration of public, private, and integration keys.
With the help of public and private keys, we maintain document security. At the same time, we used integration keys for webhooks. Once all the DocuSign keys were generated the developer added these to the database and saved public key and private key file details in the database.
After successful integration when the sponsor logs in to CoVEST account and tries to share any document. For the 1st time, they have to give access in CoVEST which will redirect them to DocuSign and ask for granting access. Once this access is granted, Sponsor can share their documents.
in Client’s words!
“Integration of DocuSign in the application was a win-win situation for us. With its help, the developers and investors are able to get into a contract without external resources. Sunflower Lab made the process extremely easy for us. We were very happy with the way they handled the project. The turnaround time was negligible, and we are rooting to work with you in future as well.“
Kymberli Cassidy
Project Manager
Syncing financial information with Google Sheets
In quite many cases, the financial information of Sponsors is stored in Google Sheets managing which manually becomes difficult. As the project came to us, we looked for a solution to optimize this data management. We implemented a module with which we reflected Google Sheets data within the application by connecting the CoVEST Capital application and Google Sheets via the backend. Currently, we are performing this ourselves but in the future, we plan for the sponsors to execute it themselves.
Verification of Sponsors Using Twilio
We integrated Twilio and Firebase within the application. Our turnaround time to get OTP within a certain mobile carrier using Twilio is almost negligible. It is used for verification of sponsor.
Implemented Phases in Summary
The project was planned in two phases. At first, we were only focusing on fetching data from the database.
However, we allowed the sponsors to edit the data as the project proceeded.
Phase #1
Issues in implementation of e-Signature
For addressing e-signature issues, the data is simply fed into the database, and sponsors cannot meddle with this data. Once the investment is committed, the sponsors can send documents to investors for a binding agreement using DocuSign. After the investors sign the document, investment info is added, and funding is done.
Phase #2
Multiple stakeholders cannot sign document
Within this phase, a sent document can be e-signed by multiple investors and sponsors. Apart from this before this phase when sponsor added a project, all their projects were visible to the investors; however, in this phase, only the selected projects by sponsors were visible to investors. Documents related to these projects only could be sent. Also, this phase allows pictures to be added or deleted to the UI of the platform.
Modules Under Development
With the successful application of CoVEST Capital the sponsors and investors can work in harmony. However, to make the application even more functional we are working on adding a few more modules to it.
Messaging
Within this module, the sponsors can create messages related to a project for the investors. The messaging interface's UI is like an email composition window. The subject, message, sender and receiver of the message is stored in the database.
CRM Integration
CoVEST Capital application also needs to have an implementation of CRM to optimally manage the leads and activity tracking. We are researching to integrate the best fit 3rd party CRM systems like Zoho, Salesforce, Microsoft, Dynamics 365 CRM, etc. However, based on preferences on requirements we can either integrate a 3rd party CRM or simply develop a CRM system in-house.
Payment Gateway
We are working to integrate payment gateway within the application to streamline investments within the application itself.
Before the implementation of CoVEST Capital online application, the collaboration process between developers and investors was very complex and tedious. In order to collaborate on the project there were emails and other modes of communication keeping a track of which was very intricate leading to delays and missed opportunities.
Client before digital revolution
Client after Sunflower Lab collaboration
With the partnership of SFL, CoVEST Capital came up with an online application that allowed them to fasten their investment process, collaborate on legal agreements, fetch their financial information within the app allowing sponsors to send investment proposals to investors.
Project Management Tool
JIRA was used to track the progress of the project.
Do you want to manage your data and business
parallelly without delving too much time into data
management? We are here!
parallelly without delving too much time into data
management? We are here!
