MetaProp seeks $200M to back bigger startups

Fourth fund would be the New York-based firm’s largest to date

Left to right: Metaprop partners Zach Aarons, Aaron Block, Zak Schwarzman and Maureen Waters (Images via Metaprop)
Left to right: MetaProp partners Zach Aarons, Aaron Block, Zak Schwarzman and Maureen Waters (Images via Metaprop)

MetaProp, a New York-based venture capital firm, is looking to raise $200 million — its biggest fund yet — to back later-stage proptech startups.

The five-year-old company disclosed the fund, dubbed MetaProp Growth Select I, in a regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday. Co-founder Aaron Block is listed as the fund manager.

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From left: MetaProp’s Aaron Block, Domio’s Jay Roberts, Homelight’s Drew Uher, FrontDesk’s Jesse DePinto, Serendipity Labs’s John Arenas and Knotel’s Amol Sarva (Linkedin, iStock, Sarva by Sasha Maslov)
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MetaProp declined to comment. But in raising a growth fund, it appears to be shifting its focus from seed- and early-stage companies to more mature startups seeking bigger checks to fuel growth.

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The firm was one of the first proptech-focused VC funds when it launched in 2015 with $5 million from friends and family. It raised $40 million in 2018, and set out to raise a $100 million fund in May 2019. It’s drawn investments from major real estate players including RXR Realty, Cushman & Wakefield, CBRE and PGIM Real Estate.

As of July 15, MetaProp had $72.95 million in dry powder, according to Pitchbook, and it had invested in 95 companies to date with an average check size of $3 million. Portfolio companies include appraisal startup Bowery Valuation and Spruce, a title insurance startup that raised $29 million in May.

This week, MetaProp announced that it led a $4.8 million seed round in Proper, an AI-powered accounting and bookkeeping startup for the multifamily industry. But during the early days of coronavirus, it focused on triaging existing portfolio companies. “We wound up doing a lot of our defensive work pretty early,” Zak Schwarzman, a general partner at MetaProp, told The Real Deal in June.

Last month, MetaProp was listed among the recipients of PPP loans available to small businesses via the CARES Act. The firm declined to comment, but Small Business Administration data show it received between $150,000 and $350,000.

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