By Jorge Mercado Friday, October 4th, 2024

Daniel Berlind, the founder and CEO of Ojai-based Snappt, is used to the grind. For six years, Berlind attempted to live out the dreams of millions of kids across the country and break into the show that is Major League Baseball.

A byproduct of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Berlind was a solid pitcher, being drafted by the Minnesota Twins in 2007 and even spent a couple of years in the Cubs farm system as well. 

The highest level he achieved was reaching Triple-A, just one stop short of the MLB. 

But those six years prepared him for what would be his next stop — the real estate industry. 

And now, nearly six years into his job as CEO, Berlind and his company Snappt are definitely in the big show.

That is proven by the fact that Snappt ranked No. 41 in this year’s Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies in the United States with a three-year revenue growth of 6,323%.

Snappt was not only the highest-ranked Central Coast-based company on the list, but it was also the top firm in the Artificial Intelligence category.

“It’s definitely hard to wrap my head around the journey I have been on,” Berlind told the Business Times.

Snappt is an AI/fraud detection company for the real estate industry. 

What prompted Berlind and fellow co-founder Noah Goldman to start the company back in 2019 was simple — they started seeing a slew of more applications using fake financial documents.

“Between the two of us, we were managing about 350 to 400 units in Los Angeles and around 2017 and 2018 we just started seeing more applicants with fake financial documents,” Berlind said.

Friends since they were both about 20 years old, Berlind and Goldman started looking for a solution to this problem.

“And we realized nothing like Snappt existed, so we had the crazy idea of building the technology ourselves,” Berlind said.

Snappt leverages AI to detect fraudulent documents. The company has already partnered with 8 of the top 10 property management firms, including Santa Barbara-based Yardi.

“What distinguishes us is that our AI has been training on data sets going back six years. We also have a database of over 8 million individual financial documents,” Berlind said.

“We also currently have 1.8 million apartments across the country using us on a monthly basis so as a result, our learning algorithms are able to stay on top of fraud as we also scale our business.”

Berlind said Snappt is the first of its kind to detect a new type of fraud called “Inception fraud” where fraud rings are infiltrating legitimate payroll companies and creating fake businesses within legitimate payroll companies.

“But because of the scale of our organization and the time that it’s been around, it just positions us to stay ahead of fraud as opposed to being reactive,” Berlind said.

Investors have also taken note of Snappt. That’s why the company was able to raise $100 million back in 2022 as part of its Series A raise.

Berlind said the company is “good on capital” and has no plans to raise money again.

“We are marching towards profitability,” he said.

Although the company is technically based in Ojai given a P.O. Box presence in the area, Berlind himself is actually based in Los Angeles. 

And, the company as a whole is technically fully remote employing about 100 people across 20 states. 

At the time Covid hit, Snappt only had six employees, but when it started scaling Berlind and the rest of the team thought they would be better off hiring the best talent from across the country remotely than having an office presence.

So far it has paid off as despite Snappt declining to share revenue numbers, over 6000% growth in the past three years speaks for itself.

“It’s hard to wrap my head around it but it’s an honor and tt’s incredibly humbling. But I think it all has to do with the people that we have here and this amazing team that we’ve built because no one can do this on their own,” Berlind said.

Berlind’s dream of being a professional baseball player may have come up a bit short, but the journey he is on now certainly has him feeling good.

In fact, he is following in the footsteps of his father, who himself owned real estate properties. 

But after his unfortunate passing from cancer when Berlind was just 23, he decided to step up to the plate and take over the family business.

Around that time, he and Goldman connected with Goldman being a big help to Berlind as he got used to the real estate industry.

The rest is history.

“I think my story just speaks to having crazy dreams, chasing them and not taking no for an answer. And that there is no substitute for working your tail off,” Berlind said.

“And also most importantly if you can build a group of like-minded individuals together that all have the same goal you’re all the better for it. Whether it’s a sports team succeeding over another or a business, it’s all about building a group of individuals together that all have the same goals, feel respected, feel heard, and are able to chase their dreams together.”

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