Get To Know The CEO: How Derrick Barker is Using Atlanta’s Fintech Scene To Fix Real Estate Financing
After managing $100M in real estate assets, Derrick Barker knew the financing process was broken. Now, his Atlanta-based fintech startup Nectar helps property owners scale without banks or VCs—offering investors predictable, double-digit returns along the way.
Derrick Barker's work managing $100 million in real estate assets taught him one thing: The process of financing such deals is broken.
“We were growing, we had assets,” he said. The problem was that when he wanted to go and buy other properties, his cash was tied up in his current real estate deals.
Nectar, the startup Barker co-founded and now leads as CEO, is looking to change that dynamic.
Based in Atlanta, Nectar provides cashflow based financing to experienced commercial real estate owners and managers who have multifamily, commercial, and single-family properties. The startup allows property owners to grow without relying on traditional debt or selling equity. Launched in 2021, the platform currently operates in 32 states across the country and provides investors access to a pool of mezzanine debt and preferred equity into top-performing real estate operators.
Investors, which include a mix of institutional firms, high net worth individuals, and some impact investors, are drawn to the platform because it provides “consistent, double digit returns backed by a very stable, very low leverage asset class, " Barker told Hypepotamus.
The platform pays back “predictable” 12-16% yields, according to its website.
The CEO Road
Barker did not take a traditional road to becoming a tech startup CEO. He first got into the real estate world as an undergraduate student at Harvard, seeing it as a more viable way to build wealth. Even while up in Cambridge, he saw opportunities in Atlanta’s housing market and started investing in buildings in the area. After three years working as a Fixed Income Trader at Goldman Sachs, he jumped into real estate full time.
He saw firsthand how difficult it was, even while managing a large portfolio, to access capital. And specifically, he saw just how inefficient and antiquated the industry was when it came to using technology. He noted that in the early days of his career, he was considered “tech forward” for using RedFin to look up comparable sales data.
Barker and his team did not actually incorporate Nectar as a FinTech business until they were going through the application process for Techstars, a global startup accelerator program. Barker said that he wanted to go through the program to figure out how to bring speed and technology into the real estate financing world.
Nectar was part of Techstars Atlanta’s 2021 cohort, something that Barker said was “foundational” in helping get Nectar off the ground.
Four years later, the startup has grown through both debt financing and seed funding rounds. Nectar is backed by Atlanta-based Collab Capital, New York’s J4.Ventures, Baltimore-based RareBreed Ventures, Los Angeles-based Coromandel Capital, and Techstars.The team has grown as well, with 14 people between full-time and contract employees now a part of Nectar. Five work on the technology side of the business alone. Other team-members based in Atlanta include co-founder Brittany Mosely and Chief of Staff Walker Skaar.
