A nine-month custom build became a vertical SaaS business by hiding the vendor, simplifying the login, and selling patience to real-estate developers. The playbook is unusually copyable - if your niche has identity, long-lived customers, and expensive fragmentation.
While most venture money chased apps and ad clicks, a small Atlanta firm went looking for founders willing to fix concrete, steel and 3D-printed homes. Here is how Shadow Ventures built a thesis around the industry software forgot.
The Los Angeles firm turned real estate's slow technology adoption into a distribution strategy: owners supply capital and operating problems, while startups bring the software, hardware and climate tools.
Two lifelong construction-tech investors raised $148 million, then handed their startups something rarer than money - a rolodex of the general contractors, builders, and design firms who become their first customers.
The world’s largest commercial real estate services company is turning brokerage relationships into a sprawling, data-rich machine for running buildings, projects and capital. Its real product is continuity - from choosing a site to keeping the lights on.
For nearly 50 years, Radian helped lenders say yes to buyers with less than 20 percent down. Now a $1.67 billion bet on Lloyd's insurer Inigo is turning that familiar mortgage specialist into something broader - and changing which risks it wants to keep.
Real built a cloud brokerage around the agent. Now it is wiring AI, banking, mortgages and closings into the same transaction - while a pending RE/MAX deal puts that operating system to its biggest test.
Independent property reports and services from a vetted panel of experts.
99 Group is a Southeast Asian real estate technology company that runs property marketplaces in Singapore and Indonesia. Founded in 2014 by Darius Cheung, it operates 99.co and SRX.com.sg in Singapore and 99.co/id and Rumah123.com in Indonesia, connecting home seekers, agents, and developers through map-based search, price analytics, and the X-Value automated valuation tool. After absorbing REA Group's iProperty and Rumah123 and acquiring SRX, it became one of the two dominant property portal groups in the region, positioned against PropertyGuru.
RentBetter is an Australian proptech company that gives everyday landlords the same tools and services real estate agents use to lease and manage residential property - advertising, tenant screening, digital leases, rent collection, inspections and maintenance - in one online platform, at a fraction of a traditional property manager's cost. Founded in Sydney in 2016 by Jeremy Goldschmidt, it targets the roughly 2.2 million Australians who own investment property and want to self-manage without paying ongoing management fees.

Aerwave is a Texas-based proptech company that designs, deploys and operates next-generation managed Wi-Fi for multifamily residential communities. It delivers property-wide, gigabit-speed internet that is secure and always on, paired with 24/7 domestic support, an owner analytics dashboard, and a capital program that lets property owners deploy infrastructure with no upfront cost. Aerwave works exclusively with real estate owners, developers and operators across the multifamily, build-to-rent, single-family rental and student-housing markets.
Blueground is a global proptech operator of furnished, move-in-ready apartments rented on flexible terms for stays of 30 days or more. Founded in 2013 by Alex Chatzieleftheriou after years of consultant hotel-living, the company leases, designs and manages thousands of apartments across dozens of cities, pairs them with proprietary technology and a guest app, and serves both relocating individuals and thousands of corporate clients. Through acquisitions, franchising and a partner network, Blueground has expanded from an Athens startup into one of the largest curated networks of flexible furnished homes worldwide.
EliseAI is a New York-based artificial intelligence company that builds conversational and agentic AI to automate the routine, high-volume communication work of two administratively heavy industries: rental housing and healthcare. Its assistants answer calls, emails, texts and chats around the clock - scheduling tours, handling maintenance and renewals, collecting rent, and booking patient appointments - so property and clinic teams can focus on people rather than paperwork. Founded in 2017 as MeetElise, the company crossed $100M in annual recurring revenue, serves roughly 70% of the 50 largest U.S. rental housing operators, and reached a $2.2 billion valuation with its 2025 Series E led by Andreessen Horowitz.
Jones is a New York-based vertical AI software company that automates insurance compliance for commercial real estate and construction. Its platform collects Certificates of Insurance (COIs), endorsements and policies, verifies coverage against requirements using AI agents, chases down gaps with vendors and tenants, and integrates bi-directionally with property and construction ERP systems. Founded in 2017 by Omri Stern and Michael Rudman, Jones manages insurance risk across roughly 2.7 billion square feet of properties and construction projects.
ListingSpark is an Austin-based real estate technology company that gives homeowners a flat-fee, software-driven way to list and sell their homes on the MLS without paying a traditional listing agent's commission. Its platform automates pricing analysis, listing syndication, paperwork, scheduling and offer management, and pairs the software with a licensed brokerage in Texas, Florida, Georgia and Tennessee. The company says it has helped more than 7,400 families sell their homes and save over $70 million in commissions.
Ownwell is an Austin-based real estate fintech that helps property owners lower their tax bills by automating the property tax appeal process. Combining local tax experts with AI and proprietary market data, Ownwell files appeals, gathers evidence, and represents owners at hearings on a no-savings, no-fee basis. Founded in 2020 by Colton Pace and Joseph Noor, the company has processed more than 1 million appeals and saved customers over $400 million, aiming to give everyday homeowners the same tax expertise that large investment firms use.
Peek is a New York-based proptech company building an AI-powered leasing platform for multifamily property owners and operators. It brings e-commerce-style shopping to apartment rentals through unit-level 3D tours, self-guided tours, a conversational AI leasing assistant, and prospect analytics - helping operators lease faster and cut vacancy loss. Founded in 2019 by Austin Lo and Chris Kostoulas, Peek raised a $5M Series A in May 2025 and serves a portfolio spanning hundreds of thousands of units across the U.S.
Placester is a Boston-based real estate technology company that gives agents, teams and brokerages a no-code way to build IDX-ready websites and run their marketing. Founded in 2011 by former agent Matt Barba and technologist Frederick Townes, it pairs drag-and-drop website building with MLS/IDX listing search, a built-in CRM, and email automation. After raising roughly $100M-plus in venture funding and acquiring RealSatisfied, Barba and a group of investors bought the company back from its VCs in 2020 to refocus on its core product and customers. Placester says its tools have served on the order of 400,000 real estate professionals.
Renew is a New York-based proptech company that builds an AI-powered resident retention platform for multifamily and single-family rental operators. Founded in 2021 by Rob Hayden and Kevin Murphy, Renew treats the lease-renewal moment as a strategic lever: its software surfaces early churn signals, automates the renewal workflow, and - through the industry's first Resident Referral Network - lets operators keep residents inside their portfolio even when they move. The company raised a $12M Series A in October 2025 to scale the platform.
RentRedi is a mobile-first property management platform that gives independent landlords an all-in-one toolkit to collect rent online, list and market vacancies, screen tenants, sign leases, and coordinate maintenance and accounting - while giving renters an app to pay rent, set up auto-pay, build credit, and submit maintenance requests. Founded in 2016 by father-and-son team Ryan and Ed Barone after Ryan's own frustrating apartment hunt in New York City, the company now serves close to 300,000 landlords and renters and manages more than $33 billion in assets.
Spacesforce (Chinese: 空间原力) is a Chengdu-based SaaS and IoT company building a data-intelligence platform for commercial real estate. Its cloud software connects leasing operations, project management and asset management so that landlords, office-building operators and coworking brands can run their space digitally rather than on spreadsheets. Founded in 2018 by Columbia-trained Donglai Du and NYU-trained Mike Zhang, the company helps traditional developers modernize how they track occupancy, tenants and building performance.
TULU is a proptech company that turns underused lobby and common space in apartment and student-housing buildings into 24/7 on-demand rental hubs. Through IoT-based units and a mobile app, residents can rent or buy brand-name products - from vacuums and e-scooters to VR headsets and household consumables - without owning them. Founded out of MIT's DesignX by Yishai Lehavi and Yael Shemer, the company pairs physical smart units with an AI layer that personalizes inventory per building, and it has served more than 500,000 residents across dozens of cities in North America and Europe.
Younity is a New York and Tel Aviv based proptech company that builds a software-defined digital infrastructure platform for multifamily and commercial buildings. It delivers property-wide, instantly provisioned WiFi paired with a SaaS layer for building performance monitoring, cyber protection, proactive service and an open platform for smart-building integrations. Younity helps landlords, developers and asset managers turn connectivity from a cost center into a revenue source while giving tenants lightning-fast, secure internet from move-in.
Hemlane is a San Francisco-based property management platform that blends software automation with on-the-ground human support to help rental owners and small property managers run long-term rentals from anywhere. It handles advertising and listing syndication, tenant screening, online rent collection, lease signing, 24/7 repair coordination and eviction support, and can connect owners with local licensed agents for showings and inspections - positioning itself between do-it-yourself landlord apps and full-service property management firms.
Asteroom turns an ordinary smartphone into a professional 3D virtual tour and property data collection tool. Founded in 2018 by ex-Facebook and Microsoft engineers, the company sells an inexpensive Pano Kit tripod plus an app that lets real estate agents, appraisers, and property managers capture immersive 3D tours, floor plans, and measurements without a $3,000 camera. It has since become a property data collection provider integrated with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Zillow, and Realtor.com, powering appraisal modernization workflows through a national network of trained data collectors.
BeyondView is a San Francisco proptech company that builds photorealistic, interactive digital twins of commercial real estate. Using computer vision, machine learning and deep learning on a cloud platform, it turns blueprints and photos into virtual spec-suites - so owners, brokers and operators can whitebox vacant space, reposition properties, run remote walkthroughs and manage portfolios without physical staging or on-site scans. Founded by former Wikimedia executive Kul Wadhwa and staffed with veterans of Pixar, Electronic Arts, Marvel and Stanford's HSTAR Lab, BeyondView counts WeWork Japan, Healthpeak, Ventas and other large landlords among its customers.
Cobu is a Boston-based proptech company that turns apartment residents into a real community - and turns that community into occupancy. Its resident-powered, AI-enabled platform runs building-wide chats, interest groups, in-person events, and always-on Google review and referral outreach, backed by a team of virtual community managers. For renters it fights isolation; for owners and operators it drives signed leases, higher renewals, better online reputation, and less busywork for on-site teams. Founded in 2018 as Doorbell, Cobu is used across dozens of U.S. states and by many of the country's largest multifamily operators.
Grotto AI builds an AI coaching platform for multifamily leasing teams, listening in on calls and tours and nudging agents in real time toward the behaviors - curiosity, rapport, a well-timed laugh - that its data shows actually close leases. Founded in 2025 by Nick Deveau and Ben Epstein, veterans of the AI-in-insurance startup EvolutionIQ, the company raised a $10 million seed round led by ICONIQ Capital in February 2026 and already runs on portfolios for operators like Weidner Apartment Homes.
Nutiliti is a software-plus-service utility management platform that lets property managers and owners hand off the tedious work of turning utilities on and off, retrieving and paying bills, billing tenants back, and reconciling the accounting. Founded in 2020, the company pairs a REST API and dashboard with dedicated human account managers, aiming to collapse work that once took 80-plus hours a month into a couple of hours while protecting portfolio NOI. It serves single-family, multifamily, and commercial operators across the United States.
Rentana is an AI-powered revenue intelligence platform for multifamily real estate owners and operators. It replaces spreadsheet-driven pricing with real-time, unit-level recommendations - optimizing rents, amenity values, marketing specials, and lease renewals in one platform. Founded in 2023 by a team out of Stripe, Airtable, Airbnb, and AppFolio and led by ex-Two Sigma investor Julie Blanc, Rentana raised a $5M seed round in 2025 and reports outcomes like millions in added property value and roughly 10 hours saved per property each week.