Covid-19 is the agent of change driving advances – and acquisitions – in a sector long-resistant to tech.
By Troy Hooper, Xinyi Jiang and Rachel Stone
Property expertise offers are anticipated to speed up this yr as Covid-19 forces the digital transformation of an business traditionally resistant to alter, executives and others say.
Automated house matching, digital dwelling excursions, renter portals, web site administration and contactless options throughout dwelling loans, funds, title insurance coverage and escrow providers are reshaping how actual property is purchased, offered, leased, and managed. Related traits are happening in industrial actual property, the place measuring air high quality and different well being variables are doubly vital.
“What Covid-19 has completed is shine a brilliant mild on the alternatives in actual property to automate all kinds of insurance policies and procedures,” stated Daniel Cunningham, founder and CEO of Leonardo247, a Redondo Seaside, California-based actual property administration software program startup. “It’s on everybody’s radar.”
Thoma Bravo’s pending $10.2 billion acquisition of RealPage
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A number of SPACs have proven curiosity in proptech companies, together with San Francisco-based rental market Condo Checklist, Atlanta-based home-buying platform Knock, and El Segundo, California-based PeerStreet, in response to their executives, who all instructed Mergermarket their companies are on public market trajectories.
Lionheart Acquisition Company II and Property Options Acquisition are among the many blank-check corporations scouting for targets.
New York-based co-working area supplier WeWork, which has made expertise an indicator of its workplace buildings, is reportedly contemplating going public via a SPAC after pulling its preliminary public providing in 2019.
Final month, Compass, a New York-based actual property brokerage startup that closely markets its technological prowess, filed paperwork to launch an IPO of its personal.
Different disruptors like Chattanooga, Tennessee-based tech-enabled shifting firm Bellhop and San Francisco-based residential actual property market Sundae plan to lift extra non-public capital earlier than pursuing public listings, in response to their CEOs. Though nothing is imminent, co-founder Gregor Watson stated Oakland-based dwelling rental market RoofStock may finally go public or promote to a big strategic like Amazon
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Carmel, Indiana-based Realync may be an acquisition goal after elevating capital in 2020, in response to co-founder and CEO Matt Weirich, who named RealPage and Santa Barbara, California-based Yardi Methods as logical consumers for its digital leasing and engagement platform for multi-family residences.
Different engaging startups to look at, in response to a sector advisor, embrace three-dimensional digital dwelling tour supplier Matterport and “iBuyer” Offerpad, which raised capital in 2020 and 2019, respectively.
Along with Airbnb, RealPage, Yardi, Zillow and Amazon, the latter of which entered the property administration area in September with “Alexa for Residential,” the advisor pointed to Appfolio
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It’s not simply startups which have targets on their backs. Some incumbents within the area may consolidate too, as Zillow and Trulia did in 2015, he added.
Based mostly in Los Angeles, Troy Hooper (troy.hooper@acuris.com) oversees IPO and SPAC content material for Mergermarket, whereas Xinyi Jiang (Xinyi.jiang@acuris.com) and Rachel Stone (rachel.stone@acuris.com) report on monetary providers and expertise out of Mergermarket’s information bureau in Charlottesville, Virginia.