REAL ESTATE TECHNOLOGY
Greensoil PropTech Ventures | September 03, 2021
Greensoil PropTech Ventures of Toronto on Thursday celebrated the sale of one of its portfolio companies, Goby, a Chicago-based data and invoice automation platform that helps buildings track, lower and report utility usage, to Conservice. Greensoil's investment in Goby dates to 2015 when they invested $4 million as lead of the first funding round through their Greensoil Building Innovation Fund (GBIF) and subsequently invested an additional $1 million in January 2017 and an additional $1 million in January of 2021, for a total of $6 million.
Founded in 2008, Goby is a leading environmental, social and governance (ESG) data management and reporting platform that has grown to serve hundreds of clients worldwide. Goby's users save time, mitigate risks and realize increased returns on their real estate investments, with the company's powerful software, which provides invoice automation, digitized workflows and analytics regarding a building's utility usage. Data collected by Goby's software allows building owners and operators to meet ESG-related goals and legal reporting requirements for energy usage.
Utah-based Conservice, is North America's largest utility management service. The firm pays more than $12 billion in utility bills, while serving over 5 million locations, including multi- and single-family housing and residential communities, commercial properties and student housing. Conservice has offered simplified utility management solutions since 2001.
"Greensoil PropTech Ventures congratulates Goby and Conservice," said Jamie James, Managing Partner with GSPV and a Goby board member. "Goby has excelled, for over a decade, with a powerful platform that captures and distills multiple data sources into simple, contextualized dashboards, tasks and reports. Its no wonder Goby proved an attractive acquisition given its ability to help property owners and operators cost-effectively monitor, reduce and report their buildings' energy usage."
The GSPV team has been working closely with a highly collaborative Goby management team and has two directors on Goby's board. While ESG reporting for commercial real estate was still in its nascent stages in 2015, it has become much more prominent now, leading to the space attracting highly capitalized and established incumbents to the market. This led to Goby receiving a strong acquisition offer ahead of expectations.
Conservice's acquisition of Goby comes on the heels of another Greensoil success – the sale earlier this week of 40% of its stake in Procore, which held a May initial public offering valuing the firm at $8.5 billion. Additionally, in March, Greensoil furthered its strategy of impact investing to digitize and decarbonize the built environment, with the recent launch of a $100 million (USD) fund called Greensoil PropTech Ventures Fund II. GSPV II seeks to invest in early to mid-stage companies that employ transformative property technologies in the U.S. and Canada, Europe and Israel.
GBIF is a pioneering $59 million (USD) PropTech-only venture capital fund, launched in 2015, with anchor funding from the London-based Grosvenor Group. Among other PropTech firms, it has successfully invested in companies that make smart home battery systems (ElectrIQ Power), a real estate deal management platform (Dealpath), wireless lighting controls (Amatis), carbon sequestering technology for concrete (CarbonCure) and construction management software (Procore).
ABOUT GREENSOIL PROPTECH VENTURES
Greensoil PropTech Ventures' mission is to digitize and decarbonize the built environment, the biggest asset class on the planet, which is responsible for up to 40% of global energy-related CO2 emissions. GSPV invests in early to mid-stage venture capital opportunities in North America, Europe and Israel that make real estate more productive, efficient and sustainable. Backed by real estate and institutional Limited Partners, GSPV has a successful track record of backing, scaling and exiting high-impact PropTech companies.
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REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT
Douglas Elliman | September 22, 2021
New Valley Ventures, an investment vehicle managed by Douglas Elliman's parent company, Vector Group, announced a renter rewards program via strategic investment in Bilt Rewards, the first loyalty program and co-brand credit card for renters. The investment comes as Douglas Elliman officially joins the Bilt Rewards Alliance, a network of more than 2 million rental units across the country where renters can enroll in the loyalty program to earn points on rent with no fees.
We are proud to support and align ourselves with Bilt Rewards as its program fills a gap in the market to set renters up for financial success and encourage a path towards homeownership.
- Scott Durkin, CEO of Douglas Elliman.
New Valley Ventures is dedicated to investing in innovative tech-driven solutions for the greater real estate community.
- Dan Sachar, Managing Director of New Valley Ventures and Vice President of Enterprise Innovation for Vector Group.
The funding round, which also counts Mastercard, Wells Fargo and other leading real estate property owners including AvalonBay Communities, Equity Residential, GID, Lennar, The Moinian Group, Morgan Properties, Starwood Capital Group, and Related Group as investors, will propel Bilt Rewards to further expand its loyalty partner network, grow its organic distribution channels, and open the Bilt Rewards platform and Bilt Mastercard more widely to the public.
Launched this June by Kairos HQ, Bilt Rewards is the first-ever loyalty program and co-brand credit card for renters, enabling the country's 109 million renters to finally earn points on their largest monthly expense with no fees. By offering the Bilt Rewards program to tenants across Douglas Elliman's rental portfolio including new development projects, residents can now earn points with every on-time rent payment.
Additionally, Douglas Elliman residents will be among the first to receive an invitation for the Bilt Mastercard, the first credit card that allows users to pay their rent with no fee. With the card, Douglas Elliman residents can earn 1x points on every dollar of rent, 2x points on travel purchases, 3x points on dining, and 1x points on all other non-rent purchases, allowing them to maximize rewards potential, all with no annual fee.
Through Bilt, renters can redeem points for travel across over 100 major airlines and hotels, fitness classes at the country's top boutique studios, and can even use points towards rent credits or a future down payment on a home. When paying rent through the Bilt Rewards app, members can also have their rent payments reported to the credit bureaus at no cost, which can help build credit history for millions of young renters.
New Valley Ventures continues to invest in promising, next-generation technologies in order to propel the real estate industry into the future and further benefit the agent, renter and buyer experience. In doing so, New Valley Ventures utilizes its deep industry knowledge through Douglas Elliman to advise on meaningful digital development, tech solutions and financial software.
ABOUT VECTOR GROUP
Vector Group is a holding company for Liggett Group LLC, Vector Tobacco Inc., New Valley LLC and Douglas Elliman Realty, LLC.
ABOUT DOUGLAS ELLIMAN
Established in 1911, Douglas Elliman Real Estate is the largest brokerage in the New York Metropolitan area and one of the largest independent residential real estate brokerages in the United States. With approximately 7,000 agents, the company operates approximately 100 offices in New York City, Long Island, The Hamptons, Westchester, Connecticut, New Jersey, Florida, California, Colorado, Massachusetts and Texas. Moreover, Douglas Elliman has a strategic global alliance with London-based Knight Frank Residential for business in the worldwide luxury markets spanning 61 countries and six continents. The company also controls a portfolio of real estate services including Douglas Elliman Development Marketing, Douglas Elliman Property Management and Douglas Elliman Commercial.
ABOUT BILT REWARDS
Launched by Kairos HQ in June 2021, Bilt Rewards is the first-ever loyalty program that allows renters to earn points on rent with no fees and builds a path towards homeownership. Through a partnership with the nation's largest real estate owners including Avalon Bay Communities, Equity Residential, Related, Starwood Capital Group and more, Bilt Rewards enables renters in more than two million units across the country to earn points just by paying rent. Bilt Rewards boasts one of the highest value rewards programs on the market today, including one-to-one point transfers to 9 loyalty programs allowing travel across over 100 major airlines and hotel partners; fitness classes at the country's top boutique studios including SoulCycle, Rumble and Y7; limited-edition and exclusive collections of art and home decor through the Bilt Collection, and the ability to use Bilt points for rent credits or towards a future downpayment. Bilt has also partnered with Mastercard to create the Bilt Mastercard - the first and only credit card that can be used to pay rent with no fees.
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REAL ESTATE TECHNOLOGY
prnewswire | January 28, 2021
Real estate tech company GA technologies Co., Ltd. (Head Office: Minato-ku, Tokyo, President & CEO: Ryu Higuchi, Securities Code: 3491; "the Company") announces that its group company RENOSY FINANCE Inc. (Head Office: Minato-ku, Tokyo, President & CEO: Ryu Higuchi; "RENOSY FINANCE") has launched a new loan service for RENOSY real estate investment owners ("the Owner") to cover their renovation (repair) costs for existing apartments. This will reduce the Owner's burden of temporary self-funding for their renovation costs that may occur during long-term ownership of commercial property. In addition, reducing the Owner's burden of renovation costs will revitalize the existing apartment market by increasing the value of existing apartments.
In addition, by connecting the RENOSY brand's renovation services and apartment management services*5, RENOSY FINANCE will provide a one-stop customer experience by minimizing procedures, including filling out application information and preparing necessary documents, and by achieving smoother loan screening. RENOSY FINANCE plans to implement an application system from My Page for RENOSY owners and within the app, as well as loan screening and progress management for renovation work.
Our group aims to contribute to the realization of a sustainable society by enhancing our services that can contribute to increasing the value of existing apartments, thereby enhancing customer experience and revitalizing the existing real estate market.
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