Rigor Beta v2.5 — Release Notes
Rigor is a lending and payments platform that modernizes and simplifies the financing of new home construction projects, enabling new capital to access the asset class.
It has been an exciting time for Rigor since our v1 release in December 2021. We raised our seed round in the first half of 2022, we continued to grow our beta, taking in as much information as possible from our intrepid beta partners to refine Rigor’s feature/functionality. With this feedback, our dev team has been hard at work continuously improving the experience Rigor brings to homebuilders and lenders.
Headline updates
- We have invested significantly in the UI, further abstracting away from the underlying, web3 componentry to create a seamless and recognizable experience for users.
- Rigor now enables a lender and homebuilder to negotiate the terms such as APY to make the experience more collaborative.
- We now support DAOs through DAOHaus, enabling pooled capital to invest in new homes on Rigor. If you’re interested in forming a DAO to fund homes, come chat with us in our Discord!
- Homebuilders are now given controls that allow them to specify the maximum amount of debt they’ll accept from lenders at any given time. This allows homebuilders to control for interest costs and ensures the amounts they need to pay their subs and vendors is available in real time.
- If desired by lenders, builders are now able to have repayments verified using a third-party escrow agent.
- We now enable homebuilders to insert verification/inspection points in order to comply with any lender requirements to that end. Verification points can include municipal inspections, third-party inspections or any other method as determined by the homebuilder and lender. To facilitate this, we have added the role of “inspector” to the app.
Full list of capabilities by user type
Lenders
- Create a lending community. Creating a community consists of the following fields: Community name, description, welcome message that a homebuilder will see when requesting to join a Lending Community, and post project submission instructions.
- View their lending community’s overview stats, which consist of the following fields: Creator, date created, members, total volume, total projects.
- View/accept/reject/comment on requests from homebuilders to join their community.
- View/accept/reject/comment on requests from homebuilders regarding project submission. Project submissions include the following fields: Project name, proposed interest rate, cash deposit, collateral, loan amount, note, images, and files. New terms can be proposed on the project submission in a negotiation with the homebuilder including a field for an origination fee. Negotiable fields include the following: interest rate, loan amount.
- View/accept/reject/comment on funding requests from home builders.
- Lend capital to fulfill funding requests by the homebuilder. Lenders can choose to partially fund a request or fulfill the request.
- Edit their profile, which consists of the following fields: profile picture, first name, last name, email, phone number.
- KYC for lenders and builders.
- View full project and task data of any project that applies to their lending community.
- View and manage requests via their requests inbox, where they can accept/reject/comment on any request and view canceled/rejected/active/completed requests
- View wallet holdings including rUSDC on their wallet tab as well as their rigor transaction history, and all outstanding loans.
- Close out any outstanding loan manually by marking the payment as “off-platform.” This burns their debt tokens. Alternatively, this can be done through an escrow agent on-platform.
Homebuilders
- Create new projects with the following fields: project name, full address, description, number of bedrooms, number of baths, square footage of house and lot, project image, project documents
- Invite a general contractor in their network to join their project. This sends a request to the general contractor, which they can accept/reject
- Once a general contractor has been assigned to a project, the homebuilder can create construction tasks and add inspection tasks. A task includes the following fields: title, description, cost, images, and files. Task type (construction/inspection) and inspection type (municipal inspection/other) Tasks can be uploaded manually or via CSV template.
- When the homebuilder creates tasks, a request is sent to the general contractor to accept the newly added tasks.
- The homebuilder can assign tasks to subcontractors in their network, the general contractor, or themself.
- Submit requests to join lending communities.
- Apply to lending communities for loans. Project submission entails the following fields: Project name, proposed interest rate, cash deposit, collateral, loan amount, note, images, and files. New terms can be proposed on the project submission in a negotiation with the lender. Negotiable fields include the following: interest rate, loan amount.
- Funds accrue interest for lenders once they are made available for use in the escrow contract. Homebuilders are empowered to submit funding requests to their lending community, allowing for toggleable loan distribution at preferred intervals. Homebuilders are enabled to take on debt as needed, under their control.
- View/accept/reject/comment on payment applications from subcontractors. Payment applications need to be accepted by both the homebuilder and the general contractor.
- View/accept/reject/comment on change order requests on tasks. Change orders can be submitted to modify the following fields: description, assignee, cost.
- In the Wallet tab, homebuilders can view outstanding loans and pay them back or mark them paid off-platform. When marking paid off-platform, they attach text/images/files as proof, which sends a request to the lender to approve. Alternatively, homebuilders can close the loan via escrow agent.
General Contractor
- View/accept/reject/comment on requests from homebuilders to be assigned as general contractor on projects.
- Create requests to add new tasks, which then get sent to the homebuilder to approve.
- Assign tasks to a subcontractor or to self.
- View/accept/reject/comment on payment requests from subcontractors.
Subcontractors and vendors
- View/accept/reject/comment on requests to be assigned to tasks
- Submit change orders on tasks.
- Submit request for payment on tasks and upload image/file/text as proof of completion.
What is Rigor? Rigor is a DeFi protocol for construction finance. Rigor makes new home construction lending simple, transparent and secure, inviting new capital to gain exposure to the asset class. Rigor aims to modernize prevailing lending and payments practices so that we can build more homes. Its open source financial infrastructure enables lenders to find and fund building projects from construction markets globally.
With Rigor, lenders no longer need to be specialists in construction lending to gain exposure to this massive asset class. Loans are collateralized by land and improvements to the land. Capital flows are transparent; returns for lenders are knowable, reliable and fixed-term. Lenders are given tokenized representations of their investments, which may allow them to use that investment across the crypto economy.
Builders gain access to new sources of lending capital to help them meet historic demand, with payments to their supply chains sent in real-time as construction tasks are completed and verified by the app — ending the longstanding and epic AP/AR mismatch that tortures the industry’s efficiency and increases lender risk.
Rigor is in a live, growing beta in Florida’s thriving residential real estate market.
