Real Estate AI Platform Raises $35M Amid Proptech Funding Downturn
It's a challenging time to be raising money as a technology firm, but the buzz around artificial intelligence appears to be more powerful than the marketwide slowdown.
Real estate AI company EliseAI announced Wednesday it raised $35M in a Series C funding round led by Point72 Private Investments, the venture capital arm of Steve Cohen's hedge fund, Point72 Asset Management. Koch Real Estate Investments and existing investors Golden Seeds, Navitas Capital, JLL Spark and DivcoWest also participated in the round, according to a press release.
New York City-based EliseAI, founded in 2017, provides AI services for multifamily and single-family property management. The company focuses on communications with current and prospective tenants, with AI assistants answering questions, scheduling tours and appointments, and collecting and tracking rent.
EliseAI plans to use the funding to expand the platform to other verticals such as healthcare. The software is used in 1.5 million units by 200 customers, including companies like Asset Living, Bozzuto and Venterra Realty, according to the press release.
“We started this company with the vision of using the most advanced technology to transform the industries fundamental to our lives,” EliseAI co-founder and CEO Minna Song said in a statement. “We are incredibly proud of the change we have driven in the real estate industry over the last 6 years. We are thrilled to bring on new partners to enable us to continue to innovate and push into new markets.”
EliseAI's latest funding round comes amid a downturn in money flowing into proptech. The first half of 2023 has seen $4.16B in proptech funding, down from $11.4B in the first six months of 2022 and $10.8B in the same period in 2021, according to the Center for Real Estate Technology & Innovation, Commercial Observer reported.
But the chatbot sector is a lucrative one after OpenAI launched its publicly available ChatGPT software in November. In January, Microsoft invested $1B in OpenAI, taking the company to a $29B valuation, according to Semafor, more than double its valuation from 2021.
AI is capturing commercial real estate's attention in particular. JLL, an investor in EliseAI, has acquired a pair of AI startups outright in the last two years.
