News came out yesterday that the Property Management market size is projected to grow from $3.62 billion in 2021 to $6.16 billion in 2028, according to a recent report by Fortune Business Insights. That’s almost a complete 2x in size for the market, which is impressive enough.
When you realize the other verticals that feed into the overarching property market (construction, real estate search, agent services, etc.), it really makes you wonder just how much activity we will continue to see in the coming months and years.
With so much proptech generating news every day, it’s easy to lose track of all the exciting deals, technologies and startups that are popping up and changing the way real estate and property is handled.
As a result, I’ll be starting an end-of-the month roundup of all the biggest stories in the proptech world. While I can’t include every story that made waves this month, I’ll do my best to include most of the important news for the month, broken down by category, with some notable excerpts sprinkled in.
Welcome, to the very first, PropTech Retrospect.
PropTech Funding News
Property Management
- PURE raises $50M for property management consolidation: “Under its business model, PURE works to acquire single-family residential property management companies and then invests in their people and processes.” (Feb. 2)
- Clikalia banks another $85M to expand iBuying in European and LatAm markets: “Following the popular iBuyer model established in the US by Redfin and Opendoor, Clikalia guarantees sellers an offer for their property in as fast as 24 hours and, if accepted, a sale in 7 days.” (Feb. 8)
- Facilio raises $35M for IoT-led building operations software (Feb. 22)
- VendorPM raises $6m seed for property management vendor marketplace (Feb. 1)
Real Estate/Property Investment
- Withco raises $32m for lease-to-own platform (Feb. 1)
- Lev Lending launches, providing end-to-end CRE direct lending: “The new service utilizes Lev’s existing AI and broker expertise to give clients a top-down view of the CRE financing from quote to close, specializing in permanent, non-recourse loans on single-tenant net lease (NNN) properties. During the products soft launch, Lev Lending has managed to close multiple $1 million+ loans, at three times the rate of traditional lenders.” (Feb. 8)
- Republic Realm rebrands metaverse real estate branch, raises $60M round led by a16z (Feb. 10)
- Ark7 to allow users to dip into IRAs for fractional property investment: “The new offering builds on the San Francisco-based startups proprietary investment strategy that allows investors to customize their portfolios by picking and choosing from vetted properties. Unlike private equity funds, Ark7 doesn’t have a required minimum investment amount. Leaning on a more inclusive business model, potential investors can buy in for as low as $5.40/share.” (Feb. 15)
- Gilbert’s Bedrock lands a $430 million CMBS loan, the largest in Detroit’s history (Feb. 22, Craine’s Detroit Business)
Rentals/Letting
- Funnel raises $36M Series B to eliminate W-2s and pay stubs from the rental process: “Originally founded as an apartment marketing platform in 2010, Funnel expanded its mandate significantly in 2018. The Florida-based proptech operates a marketing, communications and leasing platform that aims to automate property teams tech stacks for renters convenience.” (Feb. 22)
- AvantStay closes $500M short-term rental non-equity property asset fund
- Nomad raises $20m to promote long-term rental revenue: “Based in Denver, Nomad provides mom-and-pop rental property owners with financial certainty and helps them navigate the ongoing turbulent rental market. The company ensures property owners have rent paid on the first every month so that they do not have to worry about unnecessary vacancies and can focus on other aspects of their lives.” (Feb. 17)
- Proptech Lavanda snags $7.25M for flexible rental platform (Feb. 17)
- Smart home platform Wander raises $20M Series A: “With more than 20 million professional US jobs projected to be fully remote by the end of 2022, and at least 50% of American workers prioritizing remote flexibility, Wander aims to provide customers with high quality, smart tech-enabled living solutions.” (Feb. 9)
Construction
- Built Technologies announces impressive growth alongside $213M fundraise in 2021: “The Series D funding in September 2021, led by TCV, brought Built’s valuation to $1.5 billion and made it the most recent Nashville unicorn. And there are a lot of people joining this Bachelorette party, with the company doubling its headcount to 330 in 2021 and expecting the same in 2022.” (Feb. 9)
- Homebound raises $75m Series C (Feb. 15)
- German construction tech startup Cosuno raises $30M Series B by Avenir Growth (Feb. 9, TechCrunch)
- RenoRun banks $142M Series B led by Tiger Global for construction tech (Feb. 1)
- Northspyre announces $25m Series B: “Northspyre provides a purpose built operating system for real estate owners and developers managing complex projects such as ground-up developments, fitouts and major renovations across all asset classes.” (Feb. 11)
VC Funds
- Fifth Wall raises €140m European proptech fund (Feb. 16)
- Camber Creek raises $325M for latest fund (Feb. 23, The Real Deal)
- Wilshire Lane Capital launches debut fund aimed at proptech (Feb. 23)
M&A News
- MoxiWorks continue proptech consolidation, snags lead-nurturing ActivePipe: “Under the new acquisition, ActivePipe will integrate with Seattle-based MoxiWorks’ tech stack, including its CRM, recruiting system, marketing suite and websites among other products. … Founded and headquartered in Australia, ActivePipe’s platform leverages AI to automate the process for brokers and agents to stay in touch with all their potential clients.” (Feb. 22)
- Walker and Dunlop strike its largest technology acquisition to date (Feb. 7)
- Docklands Ventures scoops up South African ParkUpp for parking spot marketplace: “Founded in 2016, ParkUpp is a marketplace that connects owners of parking spaces with companies and individuals who need parking. The startup’s solution is used by listed property funds across the country including shopping centers, private parking facilities and co-working spaces.” (Feb. 4)
- Aurum PropTech acquires majority stake in co-living platform Grexter (Feb. 7)
- IDIQ acquires Resident-Link to expand renter credit building features (Feb. 15)
Partnerships
- Pennymac invests in its broker channel with latest Tavant partnership: “Under the new partnership, Pennymac has integrated its POWER portal for broker partners with Tavant’s FinDecision platform, giving the lender access to FinDecision’s dual Automated Underwriting Systems (AUS) and other core processes.” (Feb. 4)
- Roofstock enters insurance realm with Obie partnership (Feb. 1)
- Local Logic partnership brings location insights to Coldwell Banker Bain (Feb. 3)
- Dottid joins Google Cloud partner program (Feb. 4)
FinLedger Q&As
- Meet Jackie Frommer, Figure’s new COO of lending
- Q&A with Maxwell CEO John Paasonen
- Lev CEO [Yaakov Zar] discusses Lev Lending, CRE industry
- Q&A with HomeRoom CEO Johnny Wolff (YC W22)
- Realized CEO David Wieland on building wealth through real estate and hedging the modern market
Tech Nest: The Proptech Podcast with Nate Smoyer
- Radically Rethinking Real Estate Sales and Development Software with Simeon Garratt, CEO of Spark (Feb. 22)
- AI and Automation Powering Real Estate Development, with William Sankey, CEO of Northspyre (Feb. 15)
- Tech to Tackle the $500B Indoor Air Quality Industry with Michael Driedger, Founder of Airsset (Feb. 9)
- Reducing Hidden Costs and Finding Lost Revenue in Apartments with Nick Latz, CRO at Zego (Feb. 1)
Other notable news
- Real estate investor purchases rocketed 40% in 2021: “Despite investors proving resilient through a hot housing market, potential buyers that have found themselves sidelined by bidding wars and iBuying models are pointing to investors as the culprits of eating up the affordable stock.” (Feb. 8)
- Sundae unveils lending service to help investors finance on its platform (Feb. 17)
- Proptech GPARENCY just made its commercial lender rolodex completely public (Feb. 16)
- Canada-based Fraction brings HELOC product to US (Feb. 2)
- NAHB (National Association of Home Builders) Pillars Award List (Feb. 2)
- Auctionable set to launch online home auction startup (Feb. 10)
- ICE Mortgage announces 2022 Technology Innovation Award Winners (Feb. 14)
- Property management market projected to reach $6.16B by 2028 (Feb. 24)
- Introducing the 10 global proptechs in Pi Lab’s 2022 accelerator program (Feb. 10)