Real Estate Tech start-ups have raised over $700m since 2012

An interesting look into Real Estate Tech funding has been a long time coming.

Not sure about how wide-ranging this research is, but there seems to be a clear trend toward financing commercial real estate start-ups (mainly in the office space space).

Commercial real estate (CommercialRE) has seen the kind of consolidation that residential agency will one day experience. There are big firms like CBRE, JLL, Cushman Wakefield, Colliers, DTZ and Knight Frank, among others. The key is all of these agencies are substantial. They certainly have the resources to invest in real estate tech without it affecting their bottom line.

But the ‘big firms’ in CommercialRE have not, yet, invested/speculated on the potential future of their industry.

Now that ‘big data’ is less faddy and more understood, there are real opportunities to suck in the capabilities to tap a screen and have complex research and analysis at the fingertips of all several thousand of your staff. Imagine comparing yields on large office buildings, without actually having to do any work for it.

I’d wager that the big CommercialRE are talking internally about getting ahead of the curve and capturing any potential upside (if there is any) in real estate tech. What’s $100m to the likes of CBRE? A drop in the ocean to try and catch a whale.

Here’s what traditional VC and Private Equity types have been investing in: http://therealdeal.com/blog/2014/07/17/real-estate-tech-startups-raised-over-700m-since-2012-report/