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Proptech investment surged in the first quarter — but a handful of oversized deals, many of them debt, did most of the heavy lifting.
Investment into proptech firms jumped about 64 percent year over year to $3.3 billion in the first three months of the year, according to data from the Center for Real Estate Technology and Innovation.
The number of deals also rose, by 9.6 percent over the same time period, to 125 in the first quarter.
Compared to the first quarter of 2025, capital in early 2026 was more concentrated in a handful of large deals, with the top 10 accounting for about $2 billion — roughly 62 percent of total proptech investment, according to CRETI. Several of those deals were structured as debt, amplifying their impact on overall funding totals.
Though there were a handful of mega investments, they did not increase the median deal size from the year before. The median in 2026’s first quarter dipped to $8 million from $8.4 million — a nearly 5 percent decline — compared to the same time last year.
The largest deal during the quarter went to Kiavi, formerly known as LendingHome. In February, the AI-powered lending platform, geared for residential real estate investors, closed a $350 million debt deal. That was almost double the top deal in the first quarter of 2025 — $173 million in debt for Finnish housing group SATO.
The second-largest deal in the first quarter of 2025 came from Mews, an operating system for the hospitaling industry, which secured $300 million in Series D funding. EQT Growth led the funding round.
Though big deals marked much of the first-quarter proptech investment activity, funders were still pouring money into early-stage ventures, particularly as AI has led to a wave of new firms. The first quarter saw 52 seed and pree-seed deals, according to CRETI. That marked 42 percent of deal volume but just 4 percent of the quarter’s deployed capital.
The largest seed financing deal went to Zero RFI, an AI platform for the construction industry that raised $13.8 million in a round led by General Catalyst.