ValueMate and VM Appraisals are built around a simple idea: if you want to improve how appraisals are done, you need to understand the work up close.
ValueMate is the company behind ValueMate Studio, our software platform. VM Appraisals is the appraisal firm that uses it every day. They are separate businesses, but each makes the other stronger. The software helps our appraisers work more efficiently, and the firm shows us what the software needs to do in the real world.
We did not plan this structure from the beginning. We arrived at it by following the problem and changing our approach when the first version was not enough.
Finding the right problem
We—Anir, Vivek, and Pietro—met at Carnegie Mellon, where each of us developed a strong background in artificial intelligence and software. After school, we spent time exploring how AI could improve complex professional work. We looked at industries including law and healthcare, among others.
Residential appraisal stood out because it combines detailed fieldwork with real professional judgment. An appraiser observes a property, gathers information from several sources, interprets the local market, and arrives at an opinion that carries real financial consequence. It is much more than data entry, and it cannot simply be handed over to an algorithm.
Yet the software surrounding that judgment had barely changed. Information was captured by hand, moved repeatedly between disconnected tools, and assembled into long reports through hours of manual entry. The repetitive parts of the process were consuming time that appraisers could have spent on analysis and judgment.
We needed to see the work ourselves before we could understand where software would actually help.
To understand it properly, we began shadowing an appraiser in the Pittsburgh area. The first obvious pain point was the inspection. Appraisers needed to move through an entire property while taking photos, measurements, notes, and detailed observations—then reconstruct all of that information later at a desk.
So we built our first product: an AI-enabled mobile inspection app for the UAD 2.6 workflow. With a quick narrated walkthrough and LiDAR capture, an appraiser could collect detailed property information far more efficiently and carry it into the rest of the assignment. The inspection was the natural place to begin because it was where so much information first entered the workflow.
The product attracted attention, and Y Combinator backed us to keep building. But as we started selling it, we ran into a larger truth about the workflow.
Why one tool was not enough
An inspection tool was useful, but it still left the appraiser responsible for moving its output into separate form-filling software. Every extra handoff created friction. Firms could see the value of better capture, but adopting one more standalone tool was difficult when it did not own the rest of the report.
We had improved one task without improving the full process around it. Better data capture only goes so far if the appraiser still has to rebuild that information in another system.
The answer was not another integration around the edges. It was to understand the entire arc of the work: inspection, evidence, comparable selection, report preparation, review, revision, and delivery.
That realization changed the company. If we wanted to build the whole system, we needed to work inside it.
After six months in San Francisco, we moved back to Pittsburgh to work alongside the first appraiser we had shadowed. We eventually hired him full time and started VM Appraisals, an appraisal firm powered by our own software.
For the first few months, the operation was deliberately small. That made it possible to see every part of an assignment up close: the lender order, the property visit, the workfile, the report, the revision request, and the final delivery. We could build something in the morning, use it on a real report that afternoon, and know immediately whether it helped.
Running the firm gave us a much clearer way to build. Instead of guessing whether a feature would help, we could use it on a real assignment and find out immediately.
The results also changed how we understood the opportunity. One appraiser using the system was able to produce more revenue than the median appraiser while maintaining responsibility for the analysis and final opinion of value. Better software was not only a product opportunity. It could support a fundamentally better appraisal operation.
Building the firm and software together
A few months earlier, we had met Scott Yeargin at Valuation Expo. Scott had built a highly efficient appraisal firm of his own, and we quickly found common ground in how we thought the industry could work.
Scott's firm eventually joined VM Appraisals, bringing a small group of experienced appraisers into the operation. That expanded our view almost overnight. We were no longer learning from one appraiser or one local market. We were seeing a much larger volume of properties across different states, clients, and assignment conditions.
The larger operation helped us separate one-off problems from recurring ones. When the same difficulty appeared across different properties and markets, we knew it was something the software should address.
VM Appraisals is our product lab, but it is also a working appraisal firm. The software has to handle incomplete lender documents, unusual properties, inconsistent public records, difficult comparable searches, revision requests, and hard deadlines. A feature is not finished because it works in a demo. It is finished when an appraiser can rely on it during a real assignment.
This operating model also keeps the role of AI clear. Our software organizes information, surfaces evidence, and removes repetitive work. The appraiser reviews that evidence, makes the adjustments, reconciles the analysis, and signs the final opinion of value. The goal is to make an appraiser's expertise more effective, not to pretend that expertise is unnecessary.
Rebuilding for UAD 3.6
As UAD 3.6 approached, the appraisal industry had to learn more than a new report format. Appraisers also had to change how property information was collected, structured, reviewed, and submitted.
VM Appraisals began receiving assignments on the new standard. We completed the first few with legacy software and several newer platforms. The experience was rough: long support calls, invalid files, broken workflows, and hours spent working around tools that were supposed to make the transition easier.
The burden landed directly on our firm and our appraisers.
We started building a UAD 3.6 workflow for internal use. Because we already operated the full appraisal process, we could approach the new standard as more than a redesigned form. We could connect mobile capture, video-based data extraction, MLS and public records, comparable search, report generation, live preview, validation, and revisions in one continuous system.
As we spoke with other appraisers, it became clear that the problems we were solving internally were widespread. We decided to release the software publicly.
ValueMate Studio went through the GSE verification process and was verified on its first submission. We officially launched the UAD 3.6 platform at Valuation Expo 2026, where ValueMate and VM Appraisals attended together as diamond sponsors. The response—and the number of appraisers who signed up—was far beyond what we expected.
Where we are today
Today, ValueMate Studio is the software platform we wanted when we first entered the industry: one workflow from the property inspection through the completed report. VM Appraisals is the operating company that uses that platform to deliver appraisals. What we learn in the firm shapes the software, and better software helps the firm improve.
If you are an appraiser, ValueMate Studio gives you the tools to complete your own work more efficiently. If you are a lender or AMC looking for the completed appraisal, VM Appraisals provides the service. Behind both is the same team, the same technology, and the same belief that appraisal quality improves when appraisers can spend less time moving data and more time applying their expertise.
The software made the firm possible, and the firm made the software better.
We do not think the future of appraisal is a choice between human expertise and better technology. The opportunity is to use technology for the repetitive work so appraisers can spend more of their time on the decisions that require experience and judgment.
That relationship between the software and the firm remains the foundation of both companies—and of what we plan to build next.