Is This Startup Blending Proptech And Insurtech The Best Of Both Worlds For CRE Portfolio Management?

In my last column, I asked seven leading proptech VCs to share their predictions for the sector in 2020 and beyond. Amongst other things, they expect a maturing market to produce more integrated solutions: we will see an increase in end-to-end offerings coming to market as the single-product, siloed solutions taper off.

CREtech Weekly PropTech Venture Capital Funding Recap

This week witnessed a high volume of large deals across a variety of countries, where deals in North America dominated the headlines. The majority of this week’s capital went to companies that transform the real estate fintech, hospitality, home insurance and retail industries. Investments also focused on real estate platforms that leverage AI to resolve real estate data, and online marketplaces that ensure a seamless buying and selling experience.

Revenue pivot or hostile takeover? Industry leaders grumble about Zillow’s latest power move

Zillow Group’s bid to get broker licenses from coast to coast is no surprise to New York City brokerage chiefs, but they disagree on the significance. “They’re inching their way into becoming a brokerage. There’s no secret here,” said Eddie Shapiro, CEO of Nest Seekers International. “We’d be naive to think that it’s anything different.”

Real estate startup Homie plans to expand to more cities with $23 million in Series B funding

Homie has made an impression among younger, first-time home buyers in the Utah and Arizona markets for cutting out the traditional closing costs, 6% real estate commissions and arduous paperwork associated with traditional home sales. It now plans to explore opening up in three new markets and will begin a Vegas launch in March with a fresh infusion of $23 million in Series B equity financing.

Vero Leasing Raises $3.2 Million to Assist Large Residential Tenants

Mall Landlord Simon, Partners to Open 200 Ghost Kitchens

Retail developer Simon Property Group, international hotelier Accor and hospitality firm SBE Entertainment Group are joining together to open so-called ghost kitchens at 200 locations, including vacant space at shopping malls, by the end of 2021.

Cherre raises $16 million to analyze real estate data with AI

Real estate data collection and analytics costs can total in the millions of dollars. That’s why in 2016, L.D. Salmanson founded Cherre, a startup that leverages AI to cost-effectively resolve property data from disparate public and private sources. After raising $9 million in October 2018, the New York-based company today announced that it’s snagged $16 million in venture and debt funding led by Intel Capital, with participation from Navitas Capital, Carthona Capital, Zigg Capital, Dreamit Vent…

PropTech: A look at ‘what comes next’ in CRE

It’s not news that industry is in the midst of a massive, technology-driven disruption. The word itself — disruption — is overused to the point of cliché. Executives, finance professionals, workers lower down the totem pole with justifiable worries that they’ll soon be supplanted by algorithms or black-box AI — all care not so much about the “why” of disruption as the “what comes next.” In commercial real estate, “what comes next” is, in a word, “a lot.” According to a July 2019 report from C…

Houston startup incubator combines with major Austin accelerator

Station Houston, one of the city’s most prominent startup incubators, is combining with Austin-based Capital Factory LLC, one of the Lone Star State’s top startup accelerators. The deal is effective immediately, according to a Jan. 28 news release. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Andreessen Horowitz leads funding round for self-storage startup

In an age of sharing space, you can make money off just about anything: Your house is on Airbnb. Your car is on Turo. You can even rent out your swimming pool on Swimply. And now, if you have a spare room in the garage, or even a closet, you can make money off that too.