Brookfield Kicks Off Investment In Commercial Real Estate Tech With $15M For BuildingConnected

Brookfield Ventures, Brookfield Asset Management’s new venture fund, has picked its first investment in the commercial real estate industry: $15M for BuildingConnected, a bid procurement platform for the construction industry.

The investment in BuildingConnected is just the beginning for Brookfield Ventures. The fund plans to invest as much $300M over the next three years in startups in four sectors: real estate, infrastructure, power and private equity, all of which happen to be Brookfield Asset Management's business lines, the Wall Street Journal reports.

BuildingConnected's platform offers owners and contractors software that helps them procure bids and qualify vendors. It also offers subcontractors customer relationship management to consolidate and keep track of their bids.

Last fall, the company raised $22M in a Series B round of funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. 

“Construction is the most collaborative industry in the world, yet a service to connect parties and increase productivity hasn’t existed until now," BuildingConnected co-founder Jesse Pederson said. "We are the only company that doesn’t require customers to maintain a static contact database of suppliers."

Brookfield’s investment comes after the adoption of BuildingConnected’s software by Brookfield Asset Management. The company and its general contractors have used BuildingConnected on more than 300 projects ranging from small $50K remodels to a $900M ground-up office tower.

Over 170,000 owners, general contractors and subs are active on the BuildingConnected platform monthly, according to the tech company, including Clark Construction, Mortenson, McCarthy, StructureTone, Shawmut and Turner Construction. BuildingConnected also works with owners and developers such as Panera Bread, UCSF and Duke Realty.