VTS CEO Nick Romito On Its New Retail-Specific Platform
Asset management and leasing platform VTS just announced the release of its retail-specific software, VTS Retail, which caters to the data-heavy nature of the retail sector.
VTS serves some of the biggest in real estate—LaSalle Investment Management, RXR and Angelo Gordon, to name a few—whose holdings span across asset classes. VTS CEO Nick Romito (pictured) tells Bisnow the company has seen more demand for a retail-specific platform than any other product.
“When you think about retail, there’s a different set of data that you want to track, as opposed to a traditional office product,” Nick tells us. “You want to be able to calculate natural break-points, health ratios, track tenant sales—all of that can be done now in VTS.”
The data is then paired with analytics to help clients figure out their specific needs, and how they fit into the market as a whole.
“As a tech firm, we’re data junkies,” Nick adds. “So the fact that our clients need a lot of information makes it an exciting product for us to build.”
VTS’s product is helping spearhead a wave of big data entering the industry's tech space. Hightower CEO Brandon Weber recently told Bisnow we’re heading into a world where clients could “play Moneyball” with commercial real estate, and news broke in early 2016 that a VC firm led by former BlackRock CFO Paul Audet invested in ResiModel, a multifamily-specific deal management, analytics and valuation platform.
VTS takes the cake of VC investment, recently closing a $55M Series C funding round—the largest ever for a commercial real estate tech startup, bringing the platform’s total value up to $200M.
VTS’s move into retail comes amid headwinds in the sector, as poor outlooks at Macy’s, Kohl’s, Michael Kors and others have created plummeting stocks—along with a wave of bankruptcies and store closings, causing concern among retail landlords.
As retail sees a slowdown—amid competition with e-commerce—concerned clients will be hungry to adopt every advantage they can to put them ahead of the curve, Nick tells us.
“Even in the office side, we see usage and adoption grow significantly in markets that are a little bit softer,” he says. “What you want to do in that case is manage and understand your building in real time—you don’t want to be reactive, you want to be proactive.”
The release couldn’t be more timely, as the tech firm plans to show off its newly developed product at its booth (N1771) for ICSC RECON next week in Las Vegas.
