Real estate tech firm VTS has raised $90 million in its latest funding round, an investment that catapults it into the ranks of unicorns, or startups valued at $1 billion or more.
Brookfield Asset Management and GLP, two of the world’s biggest landlords, led the Series D funding round, the firm announced Tuesday. The round is one of the biggest-ever venture investments in the commercial real estate space.
The funding makes VTS one of about 20 firms in property technology to become a unicorn, according to the Wall Street Journal.
VTS, led by Nick Romito and Ryan Masiello, launched in 2012 as a marketing-service called View The Space. It evolved into a full-service cloud-based leasing portfolio management software used by some of the biggest landlords in the country, and claims to have about 10 billion square feet of space on its system.
The funding will help support Truva, a new online leasing marketplace that VTS plans on launching this year. It will help landlords and tenants do deals, occasionally without using brokers.
VTS tracks tenants in roughly 47,000 buildings across 13 markets in the U.S. and in more than 35 countries. Other investors include Blackstone Group and Tishman Speyer. It last raised $55 million in a Series C round in May 2016. A few months later, the company merged with its biggest competitor, Hightower. The founder of that firm, Brandon Weber, stepped back from the combined firm last September.
VTS charges landlords roughly 3 cents per square foot for its services. The firm does not release income or revenue, but Romito told the Journal it is near break-even. [WSJ] – Eddie Small