Founded in 2014 by Brett Crosby , a former executive at Google , and Brew Johnson , a real estate attorney , the PeerStreet platform empowers investors to more easily invest in real estate loans . The company , which raised more than $ 26mn in funding , uses its platform to allow both institutions and people to invest in real estatebacked loans directly . Its numbers as of late 2016 are staggering : the company facilitated more than half a billion dollars in investments with no losses to investors . It also grew almost 300 % from 2015 .