You have to come to Mar del Plata, he called out. Rauch turned and smiled.
From a coastal Argentine city, a young engineer named Ignacio Gorriti has built something that caught the attention of Silicon Valley's most influential minds — not through connections or credentials, but through a well-timed shout and a platform that loads in two hundred milliseconds. Roomix, his AI-powered real estate search engine, addresses a quiet injustice embedded in Argentina's property market: that listings were ordered by who paid the most, not by what searchers actually needed. At 24, Gorriti has secured investment from the founders of Vercel and Quora, and the question now is whether a tool born in Mar del Plata can reshape how an entire region finds its home.
- Argentina's dominant property platforms ranked listings by advertiser spend, not user need — a distortion Gorriti decided to fix rather than accept.
- A chance encounter outside a San Francisco tech event became the pivot point: Gorriti called after Guillermo Rauch and turned a fleeting moment into a consequential relationship.
- When Rauch's feedback revealed the platform was too slow, Gorriti cut load times from five seconds to two hundred milliseconds in a single week — a technical sprint that converted skepticism into investment.
- Roomix now handles 250,000 monthly sessions and ranks as Argentina's fourth most-visited property search site, backed by some of the most powerful names in global tech.
- Investors are already drawing comparisons to Mercado Libre, suggesting Roomix's trajectory could redefine real estate search across Latin America.
Ignacio Gorriti was 23 when he spotted Guillermo Rauch — founder of Vercel, a company valued at over three billion dollars — walking out of a San Francisco tech event. He called after him, invited him to Mar del Plata, and followed up days later with an email asking Rauch to test his product. Rauch did. His verdict: it was slow.
Gorriti spent the next week dismantling the bottleneck, cutting load times from five seconds to two hundred milliseconds. He told Rauch on X. That was enough. Rauch invested.
The product was Roomix, a real estate search engine Gorriti had built with co-founder Iñaki Valencia after identifying a structural flaw in Argentina's property market: existing platforms ranked listings by advertising spend, not by relevance to the person searching. Roomix aggregates listings from Zonaprop, Argenprop, Mercado Libre, and others, then reorders them around what each individual user is actually looking for.
Gorriti's path to this moment had its own momentum. In 2022, while studying systems engineering in Tandil, he posted a viral prototype for AI-based sign language recognition. By 2024, he and Valencia had pivoted from AI photo enhancement to rebuilding the search experience entirely.
The platform now logs roughly 250,000 monthly sessions and has facilitated over 100,000 connections between users and agents — making it Argentina's fourth most-visited property search site. Its investor roster includes Adam D'Angelo, OpenAI board member and Quora founder, and Charlie Songhurst, former head of global strategy at Microsoft and current Meta board member.
Gorriti remains measured about what comes next. But at least one of his backers is not: if he commits fully, they say, Roomix could become the Mercado Libre of real estate — a remarkable destination for a 24-year-old who started by shouting across a conference exit.
Ignacio Gorriti was 23 years old when he spotted Guillermo Rauch leaving a tech event in San Francisco last September. Rauch, who founded Vercel—a platform now valued at over three billion dollars—was walking out the door. Gorriti called after him: "You have to come to Mar del Plata." Rauch turned, smiled, and made a promise he would keep.
A few days later, Gorriti sent Rauch an email with the subject line "Marplatenses in San Francisco," asking him to test the product he'd built. Roomix was a real estate search engine powered by artificial intelligence, designed to solve a problem Gorriti had identified in Argentina's property market: the platforms that dominated the space ranked listings by who paid the most, not by what users actually needed. Rauch tested it immediately. His feedback was direct: it was slow.
Gorriti spent the next week hunting down the bottleneck. He cut the load time from five seconds to two hundred milliseconds—a tenfold improvement. He told Rauch about it on X, the social network. That was enough. Rauch committed to investing in Roomix.
The story of how Gorriti got here began two years earlier, when he was still a systems engineering student at the National University of the Center in Tandil. In 2022, he posted a prototype of an AI system that could recognize sign language. It went viral. By 2024, he had met Iñaki Valencia at a tech event in Mar del Plata, and together they founded Roomix. The original idea was to use AI to enhance photos of properties. But they quickly realized the real problem wasn't the images—it was the search itself. They built an aggregator that pulled listings from Zonaprop, Argenprop, Mercado Libre, and other platforms, then ranked them according to what each individual user was actually looking for.
The platform now processes roughly 250,000 sessions each month. It has generated more than 100,000 connections between users and real estate agents. By the metrics Gorriti shared with Forbes Argentina, Roomix ranks as the fourth most-visited property search site in the country. The investors backing him read like a roster of Silicon Valley's most influential figures: beyond Rauch, there is Adam D'Angelo, a board member of OpenAI and founder of Quora; and Charlie Songhurst, who led global strategy at Microsoft and now sits on Meta's board.
When Forbes interviewed Gorriti about his trajectory, he was measured about what comes next. But one of his new investors offered a bolder prediction: if Gorriti commits to it, Roomix could become the Mercado Libre of real estate. For a 24-year-old from a coastal city in Argentina who caught the attention of the world's most powerful tech entrepreneurs by shouting at one as he left a conference, that is no small thing.
Notable Quotes
If he commits to it, he could become the Mercado Libre of real estate.— One of Roomix's investors, speaking to Forbes Argentina
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
What made you call out to Rauch in that moment? Was it calculated, or just instinct?
It was instinct. I saw him leaving and I knew I might not get another chance. You don't think—you just act.
And when he said he'd come to Mar del Plata, did you believe him?
Not really. But I sent the email anyway. I had nothing to lose.
The speed problem—five seconds to two hundred milliseconds. How did you even know where to start looking?
I profiled everything. Database queries, rendering, network latency. It was methodical, not magic. Once you see the problem, you solve it.
Your investors are people who could back anything. Why Roomix? Why you?
Because the problem is real and the market is huge. And maybe because I was willing to work harder than anyone else in the room.
Do you think about becoming the Mercado Libre of real estate?
I think about it. But I'm focused on the next quarter, not the next decade.