Dave Sweyer, who has had a presence in the Wilmington real estate industry for many years as founder of Sweyer Property Management and Community Association Management Services, is further delving into the industry with Vantaca, a software company that has seen recent growth.
 
“We currently serve about 1 million homeowners who access our portals to make payments and interreact with their associations.” Sweyer said.
 
In 2015, Sweyer partnered with two software developers to develop a solution for his company CAMS, which then evolved to Vantaca, a platform and business that serves other community management companies.
 
“I was always on the lookout for solutions to try to benefit the company and benefit our customers and just didn’t see much,” he said. “The developer and I came together and said, ‘Hey, why don’t we go build a software company that solves many of the industry’s problems that aren’t being addressed right now?’ So that’s what we’ve done.”
 
Through Vantaca, homeowner association management companies can build customized workflows and reports including data analytics, use its integrated communication service and interact with a banking portal, including viewing and processing banking transactions.
 
“Our financial transactions are becoming significantly greater,” he said.
 
The banking feature is something the company has been expanding this year.
 
“Probably the most impactful thing we’ve done through 2019 is build out integrations with the seven leading bank players in the community association management space,” Sweyer said. “According to the Community Association Institute, which is the national organization for community association management, this industry handles about $93 billion worth of our customer’s money. There are about seven to 10 banks in the industry that have a significant market share of those deposits. We’ve integrated with seven of those banks.”
 
That means that Vantaca and those banks are transacting back and forth in real time, providing a lot of automation for customers, he said.
 
Being integrated with banks also provides a unique benefit because bank sales representatives are selling the Vantaca software, Sweyer said, and banks pay up to 100% of the costs of the software on behalf of the management company.
 
Vantaca also has a mobile app with the same capabilities as the desktop version.
 
Currently, the company has 32 employees and is adding about four new employees a month, Sweyer said.
 
The company moved to new office space at the former MegaCorp Logistics headquarters at 7040 Wrightsville Ave. in October.
 
The new office provides room for growth and also brings all its employees to one central office. Previously, the development team, now relocated to Wilmington, was in Atlanta.
 
Vantaca is available as a software as a service, with a monthly payment, and its customers are spread out across the country.
 
“We have clients spread across the country with concentrations in the largest homeowner association markets in the country, which include California, Colorado, Texas and Florida. Maryland and Pennsylvania are large markets for us, but we’re onboarding clients everywhere,” he said. “We currently have 53 management companies fully onboarded on the platform, and another 25 or so either in the onboarding process or preparing to onboard.”
 
The company has seen significant growth in 2019. Sweyer said it is projected to quadruple its revenue from 2018 to 2019.
 
One goal Sweyer has for Vantaca is to have 100 managing companies in its platform by the end of 2020, as well as double its employees.
 
“By the end of 2020, if we continue at our current pace, we will reach a point where we think we can go out and raise good growth money,” he said. “I think our ambition would be to find a strategic partner who could provide capital for us and also help us continue to grow at the pace we want to continue to grow at.”
 
One reason why Sweyer thinks Vantaca has grown in the past year is because of the pioneering solution it provides for the HOA management industry.
 
“Our industry has not had any significant technology innovation in years and years and years,” he said. “We’re offering several value-added benefits to the equation that just didn't exist. So that’s really caught the attention of the industry.”
 
While Vantaca has grown, Sweyer said he is being intentional in how much new business the company takes on because he wants it to grow successfully.
 
“Right now our focus is to continue to grow in our measured way,” Sweyer said, “and to continue to improve our product and processes so that we can continue to onboard more management companies across the country.”