(Photo: Douglas C. Pizac/AP)
Some of the biggest names in the traditional commercial-property world are participating in a $40 million venture capital fund aimed at bankrolling real estate technology startups.
Backers of MetaProp Ventures II LP include Prudential Financial Inc.'s investment management arm PGIM, Scott Rechler's RXR Realty and three of the biggest commercial-property brokerages: CBRE Group Inc., Cushman & Wakefield and the technology-innovation unit of Jones Lang LaSalle Inc., JLL Spark.
It's a shift in strategy for MetaProp NYC, founded in 2015 and part of a widening field of so-called proptech firms. With its first fund, when MetaProp found a startup it was excited about, it would spread the word to a network of possible backers. Now those investors themselves are partners in the fund, assuring that startups will get their money faster, according to Aaron Block, a co-founder of MetaProp.
"We go after the best entrepreneurs, solving the biggest problems, at the earliest stages of maturity," Block, whose firm announced the second fund on Tuesday, said in an interview. "But this time, we can actually write the size check we need to, in order to really support those entrepreneurs."
