REAL ESTATE TECHNOLOGY,REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT
Lessen | January 17, 2023
Lessen, the leading tech-enabled outsourced property services platform, recently announced the strategic acquisition of facilities maintenance technology leader SMS Assist.
By combining the complementary strengths of both organizations, Lessen will continue to address real estate's pain points, offering its clients a scalable, tech-enabled enterprise solution for residential and commercial services. As a result, the companies will serve around 250,000 residential and commercial properties nationwide, enabling approximately 2.5 million repair and maintenance orders annually, in addition to expanding their property services.
The transaction is completed with stock and cash, with Lessen raising roughly $500 million in combined new debt and equity. SMS Assist stockholders exchanged a portion of SMS stock for Lessen stock, resulting in a combined company valuation of over $2 billion. Debt and equity investors, including Värde Partners, Monroe Capital, and Koch Real Estate Investments, assisted with this transaction. Invitation Homes and American Homes 4 Rent are among the clients who invested in the deal with Lessen.
Following the conclusion of the transaction, Lessen's Jay McKee will continue to serve as Chairman of the Board of Directors and CEO of the newly-merged company. He states, "Lessen recognized early on the opportunity to provide an enterprise-level solution that solved the real estate industry's long-tenured property services pain points." He added, "This deal demonstrates the increasing demand within the underpenetrated, $330 billion addressable North American property services market for a unified, extensible delivery platform that provides transparency, efficiency and data-driven insights for the entire real estate ecosystem including investors, owners, managers and service providers.
(Source – Business Wire)
The new, unified technology platform will allow various service providers—from painters, contractors, and plumbers to electricians and more—to work as one on a national scale, which was previously impossible. The quality of this work will be supervised and inspected by Lessen's in-house project managers. This integrated solution will assist owners in overcoming skilled labor shortages while lessening administrative burden, enhancing project efficiency, and providing real-time project updates.
About Lessen
Lessen is the only end-to-end tech-enabled solution for outsourced real estate property services that delivers consistency, quality, and speed at scale, focusing on single-family and multifamily rental renovations, turns, and maintenance. Through automation and real-time analytics, the firm's technology suite is disrupting and modernizing a project management space that is still reliant on traditional organizational and communication models. The company's professional field project managers provide on-the-ground service, utilizing a network of verified service professionals in over 40 markets across the country, all powered by its proprietary technology platform.
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MARKET OUTLOOK, REAL ESTATE TECHNOLOGY
PRnewswire | March 23, 2023
Evocalize, the industry-leading technology that powers many of the largest, most effective cross-channel digital marketing solutions, is excited to announce its partnership with Side, the industry's only real estate brokerage platform that empowers top-producing agents, teams and indies to create and grow their own business. Together, Evocalize and Side are drastically improving the way real estate agents approach local digital marketing on Google, Facebook, and Instagram by allowing the most sophisticated lead generation programs to be launched with push-button ease.
The partnership allows Side to offer its network of market-leading boutiques a powerful new tool for reaching and engaging their target audiences. Side's Digital Campaign Builder, powered by Evocalize technology, will leverage full MLS integration to provide highly-targeted, data-driven campaigns that reach consumers at the most opportune times and in the most relevant locations. Users can easily designate the program they want to launch, in which geographic area, and how much they want to spend. Once a campaign is approved, the technology will automatically optimize spend across Google, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, displaying their ads on the channels most likely to drive engagement and quality leads.
Evocalize's technology supports businesses across industries, including residential and commercial real estate, mortgage, insurance, senior living, financial services, restaurants, franchises, travel and more. Its Collaborative Marketing Platform with EVOLVE artificial intelligence layer is designed to help national brands and technology platforms, like Side, take the complexity out of local digital advertising for themselves and their distributed users. The platform uses real-time data for automation and machine learning algorithms to optimize performance across multiple ad platforms, ensuring that ads are seen by the right people, in the right place, at the right time.
"We are excited to be partnering with Side, a company with a strong track record of empowering the most successful agents and teams in the industry. The common goal of both of our companies is to empower local agents and operators with the tools they need to grow their business," said Evocalize CEO, Matthew Marx. "Together, we are making it easier than ever for agents in the Side community to achieve their local marketing goals using the most sophisticated, data-driven techniques in just a few clicks."
The partnership between Evocalize and Side is a game-changer for agents and teams looking to invest in local digital advertising and stand out in their local markets. With Side's expertise and Evocalize's innovative technology, boutique companies in Side's network can now reach their growth targets more effectively and efficiently than ever before.
About Evocalize
Evocalize's Collaborative Marketing Platform is used by multi-location brands, technology platforms (like CRMs), and online marketplaces to equip their locations, agents, and users at scale with sophisticated, push-button easy digital marketing that drives real business results and revenue. Evocalize is a partner in Facebook's Real Estate Top Provider Initiative and is a recipient of HousingWire's Tech100 awards in both Real Estate and Mortgage. Evocalize's technology supports businesses across industries, including real estate, mortgage, insurance, financial services, restaurants, franchises, travel, and more. Over 1,500,000+ sophisticated digital marketing programs have been run using Evocalize technology, generating millions of leads, and leading to thousands of transactions to date. Evocalize is backed by Madrona Venture Group, Move, Inc., Second Century Ventures and Habanero Ventures. For more information, visit evocalize.com.
About Side
Side is the only brokerage platform that exclusively partners with top-performing agents, teams and independent brokerages to create and grow their own boutique brands without the cost, time or risk of operating a brokerage. Side's proprietary technology platform and premier support solutions empower its agent partners to be more productive, grow their businesses and focus on serving their clients. Side is headquartered in San Francisco. For more information, visit side.com.
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MARKET OUTLOOK, REAL ESTATE TECHNOLOGY
MRI Software | February 27, 2023
One of the leading software solutions in real estate, MRI Software, announced it completed the acquisition of the $93.4 million stock of PropTech Group. The Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB), Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), and Federal Court of Australia approved the highly anticipated transaction, first announced last year.
Australia's property technology (PropTech) industry has experienced extraordinary growth in recent years due to an influx of new providers and innovation. By acquiring PTG, MRI enhances and expands its MRI LivingTM suite of residential sales and property management solutions, automating and simplifying all consumer touchpoints within the real estate industry.
It is recommended that the agency professionals continue their work with their respective PTG or MRI contacts. The PropTech Group initially traded as PTG on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) in November 2020 with a suggestive enterprise value of $27 million outlined in its Prospectus. MRI has acquired it for $93.4 million, equal to a nearly 250% increase in value in the past two years.
Senior Vice President and Executive Managing Director for MRI Software in Asia Pacific, David Bowie, said, "This acquisition brings together two innovative PropTech companies dedicated to providing the greatest possible value to real estate agencies across Australia and New Zealand." He added, "The residential real estate industry is now a step closer to having a holistic operational view of consumers throughout their property life cycle."
(Source: Cision PR Newswire)
About MRI Software
MRI Software, is a top real estate software solution provider that transforms how communities live, work and play. Its open and connected AI-first platform empowers owners, workers, and occupiers in residential and commercial property organizations to revolutionize in rapidly changing markets. It has been a pioneer in the PropTech industry for over fifty years, offering two million+ users globally. Through a rich partner ecosystem and innovative solutions, the software provider provides real estate companies access to accomplish their vision of building flourishing communities and more substantial businesses.
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