14 Real Estate Tech Startups You Need to Pay Attention To
With real estate apps, the Internet of Things, a number of growing innovations and impressive technologies, the commercial real industry is evolving at a Usian Bolt pace. On the tech side of things, startups are disrupting the industry, earning big bucks from angel investors. Here are 14 top money-raising real estate tech startups.
HQ: Washington, DC
Total Funding: $40.99M
Most Recent Funding: $7M Series A in September 2014. Since then, the company has grown more than 1500%.
Founders: Ben Miller and Daniel Miller
What They Do: In 2010, Fundrise brought commercial real estate funding to the public for the first time online. Through crowdfunding, real estate companies can pool money quickly while allowing investors to get in on the action with a low cash commitment while offering solid returns. Since launching, the idea has taken off, leading to a wave of new companies getting in on the crowdfunding action. Angel investors are bullish on the platform, too: since launching, Fundrise has raised funds to the tune of $40M-plus.
HQ: New York
Total Funding: $32M
Most Recent Funding: $21M Series B in July 2015
Founders: Nick Romito and Ryan Masiello
Where to see: VTS will be presenting at Bisnow's invite-only Ascent retreat as a leader on the Future of Real Estate. To be considered to attend the retreat, apply here.
What They Do: VTS streamlines the leasing process with HD video tours and shared analytics that can be easily shared and accessed. Available in 14 US markets, VTS's video is paired with its data to provide real-time portfolio statistics, allowing brokers and landlords to pre-qualify leads efficiently. It also gives you the option of looking at your entire portfolio and even uses the data to process the upcoming trends and analyze demand. This efficiency hasn't gone unnoticed in the investment community, either, as the company earned $21M in Series B funding over the summer.
HQ: Palo Alto, CA
Total Funding: $26.2M
Most Recent Funding: $14M Series C in October 2014
Founders: Mark Gilbreath and Doug Marinaro
What They Do: For startups looking for offices, LiquidSpace can help you find a new place in minutes rather than months without any complex leases and hassles. You can book a space on a month-to-month basis and upgrade anytime as your business and needs grow. Even if you need another space, Liquidspace can help you find another work or meeting space anywhere in the US, Canada and Australia. Those with extra spaces to share can use LiquidSpace as a funding source to find new tenants and bring in revenue, with tool that can help you merchandise and present your space to other startups. It even handles the terms, agreements and credit card transactions.
HQ: New York
Total Funding: $21.66M
Most Recent Funding: Currently undisclosed amount in August 2015
Founders: Brandon Weber, Niall Smart and Donald DeSantis
What They Do: Hightower is a commercial leasing management platform that allows brokers and owners to better manage their leases by allowing them to collaborate with their teams, manage important files and update deals in real time on any WiFi device. For landlords, Hightower is a way to look at their portfolios and use processed data to make leasing decisions. Additionally, users can send all these data and analyses to their clients in a matter of seconds.
HQ: San Francisco
Total Funding: $17.4M
Most Recent Funding: $12M Series B in January 2013
Founders: Jason Freedman, James Bracy, John Bracy, Ben Ehmke, Alison Di Spaltro, Emily Spady, Tristin Himes, Patrick Leiser, Lily Rudolph and Ayla Koenig
What They Do: 42Floors simplifies the search for rental office space and commercial real estate listings with a variety of categories to search in each market. The hook here is that users can find the co-working spaces, office sublets or executive sublets their business needs without the hassle of searching through countless pages of listings.
HQ: New York
Total Funding: $17.25M
Most Recent Funding: $5M Series A in June 2013
Founders: James Roberts, Riggs Kubiak and Garrett Kubiak
Where to see: Honest Buildings will also be a leader at Bisnow's invite-only Ascent, where they will discuss the future of real estate. To be considered for Ascent, apply here.
What They Do: Honest Buildings is the only purpose-built platform for real estate management and construction teams to collaboratively track jobs, intelligently compare bids and generate portfolio-level insights.
HQ: New York
Total Funding:$14.39M
Most Recent Funding: $4.4M Series A in November 2014
Founders: Michael Mandel and Vadim Belobrovka
What They Do: Using a crowdsourced model, CompStak gathers real estate informaton that would be pretty much impossible to find—let alone compile—with your typical Google Search. Used by brokers, landlords, appraisers and researchers alike, CompStak's comprehensive database of commercial lease transaction comps is constantly being built with their points systems, where users can gain points for submitting comps, which they can then use to buy other comps. The database can also be sold to REITs, asset managers, banks, hedge funds, and other agencies and organizations—a business model that has been proven enticing enough for investors to back them with close to $15M.
HQ: Denver
Total Funding: $10.38M
Most Recent Funding: $8M Series B in August 2015
Founder: Tanner McGraw
What They Do: As the leading provider of cloud-based commercial real estate brokerage management software, Apto's impressive platform was created and designed by industry veterans and gives brokers a variety of powerful (but still easy-to-use) tools that can help maintain and manage deals, office operations and their relationships with customers. By helping you make smarter business decisions, Apto is perfect for brokerages of all sizes, and its clients include five of the top ten brands in commercial real estate.
HQ: New York
Total Funding: $7.36M
Most Recent Funding: $5.26M
Founders: Dustin Byrne, Judy He and Dave Eisenberg
What They Do: Using 3D modeling and the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, Floored builds fully explorable 3D models of various properties, which customers can use to develop, market and analyze their upcoming projects to investors. Everything from the furniture to the specific wall textures can be decided upon and modeled by the Floored team and clients, and then explored using the Oculus Rift. They've also recently debuted their Protofit program, where clients can create a floor plan for their office space. Everything from break rooms to meeting spaces can be added and adjusted with a simple and intuitive interface. Of course, these plans can be shared with the click of a button.
HQ: Boulder, CO
Total Funding: $6.63M
Most Recent Funding: $3.63M Series A in April 2014
Founder: David Mandell
What They Do: PivotDesk is like the Craigslist or Airbnb for office space. By hooking up your business with other businesses with excess, sharable space, PivotDesk eliminates the risk of a long-term lease and allows both massive corporations and small, fledgling businesses to find co-working spaces. This gives these businesses the freedom of mind to grow their business rather than worry about all the money they're spending on an office they'll outgrow in a few months.
HQ: San Francisco
Total Funding: $6M
Most Recent Funding: $4M Seed in November 2014
Founders: Phil Plante and Justin Alanis
What They Do: Rentlytics offers a business intelligence solution to the multifamily real estate industry that unifies disparate enterprise data and enables users to intuitively analyze their entire portfolio through a single interface. Rentlytics' clients can simplify their workflows, optimize asset performance and capture more revenue. Launched in late 2014, Rentlytics is actively used by a range of leading institutional multifamily investors and managers.
HQ: New York
Total Funding: $2.47M
Most Recent Funding: $2M Seed in March 2015
Founders: Jonathan Wasserstrum (center), Aron Susman (right) and Justin Lee (left)
What They Do: For companies looking to expand or relocate, TheSquareFoot is a venture-backed company that provides you with an interactive online search and concierge service that can help you find your next office space.TheSquareFoot provides you with not only a platform that allows you to browse commercial space all across the country, but also an intelligent and exper two things – technology to allow you to browse experienced broker to walk you through the process of leasing space.
HQ: Brooklyn, NY
Total Funding: $1.5M
Most Recent Funding: $1.5M Venture in May 2015
Founders: Bernhard Mehl (right), Maximilian Schuetz (left) and Carl Pfeiffer
What They Do: KISI allows you to use your phone to lock and unlock your security systems. The program is designed for businesses, commercial, office and residential buildings and works with your existing infrastructure, so you won't need to tear the wires out of your walls to hook up a new system. Quick, convenient and functional, KISI works both on your desktop and with an app, and makes keys, and can be immediately updated if you lose your phone.
HQ: Atlanta
Total Funding: $1.3M
Most Recent Funding: 1.3M Seed in March 2015
Founders: Jake Edens and Chris Lexmond
What They Do: Using proprietary market analysis based on massive data aggregation, REscour is a data platform and decision engine that can help you identify your next investment opportunities. Based on your portfolio and market preferences, the program creates custom, tailed recommendations in real time, giving you an advantage and allowing you to make decisions quickly and with all the information you need.
