The Antiquated CRE Transaction Process
U.S. commercial real estate is a $20-trillion asset class, yet – even as technology has enhanced other aspects of the sector — the transaction process for buying, selling, and financing commercial property has remained highly analogue. Most deal-related data is collected by third-party intermediaries in offline channels, with disconnected spreadsheets, emails, handshakes, and other manual processes continuing to dominate workflows.
Despite the real estate industry’s size and scope, it has never benefited from what many other large financial markets enjoy: a technology infrastructure that centralizes the disparate counterparties, workflows, and datasets at play in every deal.
A Comprehensive Capital Markets Platform
Historically, RET Ventures has focused heavily on the operational side of real estate technology, with numerous investments in smart buildings and property management tools focusing on maximizing the operating efficiency of properties and portfolios. As we grow, our strategic approach has expanded accordingly across the CRE value chain, with a keen eye toward how owners build and finance their portfolios. A significant priority is bringing greater efficiency and transparency to the processes surrounding acquisition, disposition, and financing of projects, properties and portfolios; to that end, we’re excited to announce our investment in Revere.
Revere presents a novel concept for the institutional CRE market, combining a verified professional network, listing marketplace, and deal execution venue into a true ‘one-stop-shop’ for market participants. Revere enables brokers, developers, owners, lenders and investors to expand their network; identify potential counterparties; and buy, sell, or finance an asset all in one place.
Revere aggregates and stores vast amounts of relevant information on the people, companies, and transactions that comprise the institutional CRE market, making this data easily accessible to platform subscribers. Furthermore, Revere is unique among real estate transaction marketplaces as a subscription-based platform that does not take commission from any deals facilitated on the network — this model was designed deliberately, motivated by Revere’s mission to bring greater efficiency and transparency to the existing market structure, with brokers very much included. Revere provides a valuable turnkey tool for brokers throughout the transaction lifecycle helping them ensure best execution for clients on the buy and sell side of any deal.
Revere’s Incredible Potential
As a seed stage company, Revere is younger than our typical investment. But we see incredible market opportunity in the prospect of aggregating the different components of the CRE market onto a single comprehensive, collaborative platform. Just as importantly, we have tremendous confidence in the company’s leadership team, which includes sophisticated CRE professionals and ex-Googlers who understand the inner workings of a CRE transaction and how technology can improve it.
The company has already gained significant traction from several prominent institutions — including our co-investors Related Companies, Holland Partner Group, The Feil Organization, Driftwood Capital, Davis Development and Essence Development — and it is poised for rapid growth in the near term.
The Future of Real Estate Capital Flows
A platform like Revere is long overdue, but more timely than ever. With macroeconomic trends and inflation driving investors to real estate, the asset class is one of the most attractive destinations for institutional capital. In this climate, Revere’s ability to bring together all aspects of the capital stack – investors, developers, debt and equity — will simplify the transaction process and allow users to build business partnerships with investors across the country.
Revere is a valuable addition to RET’s current portfolio of real estate technology investments, and we look forward to providing the company with resources and support as they expand their team and continue to refine their product in the years ahead.