To understand how the commercial real estate tech sector will continue to evolve and transform, I pay a lot of attention to what’s happening OUTSIDE of the sector.

I follow other industries and study their trends . I don’t think that commercial real estate will be much different than how Fintech emerged from the financial services, or how Healthtech is emerging from the healthcare industry.

Following the trends in other industries is a great way to understand how new tech ecosystems emerge and become sustainable. And as a new sector, CRE technology will

clearly follow the same patterns. For instance, read this article to see how the actual healthcare giants are now investing in startups and the strategy behind this trend.

Or, see how Blockchain has the potential to threaten the financial services sector, unless the banks etc. start to invest in this new technology:

In the world of commercial real estate tech, it’s clear that a great deal of the investment leadership is now coming from the brokerage firms themselves. I have written about this extensively and most recently, here.

Virtually, every major brokerage firm has become aligned with an accelerator and is making direct investments into startups. The conversations I have with some of the leading owners/developers in the world like Brookfield, Simon, Blackstone, Regency Centers, Prologis, Hines, Rudin, Silverstein and so many more, clearly indicate the development and ownership world isn’t too far behind from the brokers stepping up their startup investment activity.

So the good news for startups, is that while indeed early stage funding is down and harder than ever to secure, help is on the way in the form of  industry giants. They understand how investing in startups is not only a smart way to generate long-term returns, but to drive innovation to their own company for substantial future growth.