Tishman Speyer Launches $150M Proptech Fund

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Tishman Speyer has introduced the Tishman Speyer Proptech Venture Fund with the hope of raising as much as $150 million for the purpose of funding technology-driven opportunities across the real estate market. The investment vehicle marks the real estate developer and operator’s first proptech venture capital fund and the company has already gotten off to a smashing start, having landed $100 million in equity commitments.

The timing for bringing the Venture Fund to the fore, Tishman believes, is right not just for the company, but for the commercial real estate industry. “We are in the early innings of a technological revolution that will transform how we operate and interact with real estate,” Jenny Wong, senior managing director of Proptech with Tishman Speyer, told Commercial Property Executive.

“The industry has embraced innovation at an accelerating pace over the past few years, but virtually every area of real estate remains ripe for disruption,” Wong added. “In recent years, we have used our own balance sheet to invest in a wide range of emerging Proptech companies and viewed our new Venture Fund as the logical next step.”

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Tishman Speyer is no stranger to proptech. The company has invested in 19 emerging proptech companies since 2017. Now companies are investing in Tishman Speyer’s Venture Fund. The National Pension Service of Korea and Investment Management Corporation of Ontario anchored the aforementioned $100 million investment in the new proptech investment vehicle.

In November 2021, NPS and Tishman Speyer, strategic partners and co-investors for more than a decade, formed a $1.5 billion separately managed account targeting investments in real estate innovation and high-demand asset classes in the U.S. The initiative was to include, among other things, the establishment of new funds and platforms focused on promising sectors.

Taking proptech’s temperature

The proptech industry didn’t go unscathed by the pandemic, but it’s bounced back and with greater vigor than ever. There’s no question that proptech has the investment community’s attention, with $5.1 billion in venture capital across a record 219 transactions having been invested in 2021, according to a March 2022 report by Valley Bank and Bank Leumi USA. And looking ahead, proptech will likely center on the themes of sustainability and security, according to the report.

The Venture Fund’s objective, however, is clear. “Our goal is to find, invest in and ultimately adopt the technologies that will make our customers’ lives more productive, enjoyable and inspired,” Wong said.