As the real estate data space heats up, Reonomy taps a new CEO

Startup raised $60M last year to expand internationally

Bill Okun (Linkedin)
Bill Okun (Linkedin)

Real estate data firm Reonomy has tapped a new chief executive, as the company looks to scale up and meet higher demands for information as the market recovers.

Founder Rich Sarkis, who previously held the CEO title, said in a LinkedIn post that Bill Okun would take over as chief executive. Sarkis will take on the role of executive chairman, focusing on “clients, strategy and partnerships” while Okun handles “daily execution and management of the team.”

Okun, who previously served on the Reonomy’s board, joined the startup full-time in February as executive vice president. A veteran of information service and tech companies, he previously worked at S&P Capital IQ, McGraw-Hill and Sapient. At Reonomy, he focused on growing its enterprise business.

Founded in 2013 by Sarkis and Charlie Oshman (who has since joined Delshah Capital), Reonomy has raised over $128 million from investors including SoftBank, Bain Capital Ventures and Sapphire Ventures.

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In November, the startup closed a $60 million Series D that it said it would use to double down on machine-learning capabilities and expand to new markets in Canada and the U.K. Last year, Reonomy also announced a slew of partnerships with property data firms CoreLogic, Dun & Bradstreet and Black Knight.

In a statement, Sarkis said of the CEO transition, “While we never intended for this change in leadership to take place during a global pandemic, with the months of planning we’ve put behind this decision, we knew we were ready to move forward.”

Reonomy claims to have data on 50 million commercial properties around the U.S. The company pulls information from hundreds of sources and uses algorithms and AI to generate property data for investors and developers. Clients include CBRE and Brookfield.

Major players in the information sector are looking to capitalize on the need for fresh data on the economic fallout from coronavirus. Earlier this month, Trepp and CompStak, two big names in commercial real estate data, announced a data-sharing partnership that will let Trepp’s users access CompStak data on leases. In May, data behemoth CoStar paid $190 million to buy auction-website Ten-X to help investors navigate the distressed market.

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