Where Are The Top Smart Money VCs Investing In Real Estate Tech?

Venture capital funding to real estate tech startups crossed the $1B mark last year, and is projected to reach $1.5B at the current run-rate. With real estate tech investing growing, it’s important to know where the top VCs are putting their money.

Some of the deals by top VCs into real estate tech include Bessemer Venture Partners’ Seed, Series A, and Series B investments in Hightower, a leasing-management platform; and the involvement of four smart money VCs — Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Greylock Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, and New Enterprise Associates — in financing Zumper, an apartment rental platform.

Below, we delve into smart money VC annual deals and dollars in real estate tech, and include a CB Insights Business Social Graph, a visualization that shows how key investors and target companies are related.

(For more on how we selected our top 20 VCs, see the note at the end of this post.)

Between 2013 and 2015, the top 20 smart money VCs are averaging 15 deals annually in real estate tech (assuming 2015 year-to-date trends continue).

• Real estate tech deals and funding involving smart money VCs first ramped up significantly in 2013, when funding increasing 417% year-over-year. The year included Redfin‘s $50M Series F in November 2013, which included smart money VC Greylock Partners.
• The 6-year peak in deals and funding to the space involving smart money was reached in 2014 with 15 deals across more than $175M, but 2015 is projected to surpass that deal-count, as seen in the chart below.
• In 2015 YTD there has been $164M deployed across 12 deals involving smart money VCs, and at the current run-rate funding would reach $230M across 17 deals.

The CB Insights Business Social Graph details the relationship between investors and companies, and helps illuminate how the smart money is investing in real estate tech. Tracking smart money VC investments can help industry-watchers stay on top of real estate tech disruption, since the top VCs can often see around corners and anticipate industry shifts.

Smart money categories

We identified five specific real estate tech categories where smart money VCs are investing heavily.

• Listing & search services – Businesses that allows agents and brokerages to post listings on their platform, which users search for residential and commercial property. Listing companies include VivaReal (Spark Capital) and 42Floors (Bessemer Venture Partners and New Enterprise Associates); as well as LiquidSpace (Floodgate and Greylock Partners), Estately (Founders Fund), PropTiger (Accel Partners) and Zumper (Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Greylock Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, New Enterprise Associates).
• Investment – These are companies that provide platforms allowing investors to channel financing to real estate in the form of equity or debt. Companies providing this service include Property Partner (Index Ventures) and RealCrowd (Andreessen Horowitz).
• Tech-enabled brokerages – Startups that provide brokerage platforms to help facilitate the buying and selling properties. The startups in this category include Redfin (Greylock Partners) and Compass (Founders Fund).
• 3D virtual-viewing technology – These startups, which create 3D models of physical spaces, include Matterport (Felicis Ventures and Greylock Partners), and Floored (Felicis Ventures).
• Leasing management software – These are leasing tools aimed at owners, property managers, and brokers. Companies tackling these issues include Hightower (Bessemer Venture Partners) and LeaseAccelerator (Accel Partners).

Note: Smart money VCs can often see around corners and recognize great companies early on. To analyze smart money trends in real estate tech, we looked at the activity of the top 20 VC firms, selected according to portfolio evaluations and CB Insights’ Investor Mosaic investor ranking model. Here’s our full list of 20 smart money investors:

1. Accel Partners
2. Andreessen Horowitz
3. Battery Ventures
4. Benchmark Capital
5. Bessemer Venture Partners
6. CRV
7. Greylock Partners
8. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
9. New Enterprise Associates
10. Redpoint Ventures
11. Sequoia Capital
12. Union Square Ventures
13. Spark Capital
14. Index Ventures
15. Khosla Ventures
16. Founders Fund
17. Google Ventures
18. Felicis Ventures
19. Floodgate Fund
20. First Round Capital

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Feature image credit: blairsmith66, Creative Commons