PropTech1 Ventures, the first venture capital investor in Germany focused on the digitalization of the real estate industry, begins its investment activities. The investment focus is on European PropTech startups with a special focus on the DACH region.
Enormous optimization potential and sustainable changes: Digitalization also presents the real estate industry with immense challenges. Real estate companies – similar to those previously seen in retail or the finance and insurance sectors – must now understand and capitalize on these challenges as opportunities. PropTech startups can provide suitable solutions. However, established market participants are still very hesitant about participating in innovative business models.
“Traditional real estate companies have little experience with direct minority investments”
Marius Marschall from Bieberstein, Managing Director and co-owner of the medium-sized real estate developer evoreal, summarizes the reasons for the hesitation:
"Traditional real estate companies have little experience with direct minority investments in startups and therefore lack internal venture capital structures, processes, and expertise. Furthermore, so-called corporate VC funds suffer from adverse selection because good startups don't want to commit to a single strategic investor, lest they exclude their competitors as future customers and/or buyers."
Based on their analysis, the initiators Marius Marschall von Bieberstein and the Venture Capital Family Office COOPERATIVA Venture Groupto combine precise venture capital know-how with deep sector knowledge of the real estate industry and to invest in PropTech startups as an independent venture capitalist.
Venture partners provide broad assessment expertise
Additional entrepreneurs with relevant experience have joined the PropTech1 Ventures project as venture partners, ensuring broader assessment expertise and greater market access. These include:
- Andreas Wende, who has held senior positions at real estate companies such as JLL and Savills and is a business angel with well-known PropTech companies such as Allthings and EVANA in advisory roles,
- Christian Vollmann, CEO & Founder of the Neighborhood Network nebenan.de and “Business Angel of the Year 2017”,
- Kristofer Fichtner, a successful PropTech entrepreneur who has already achieved an exit with his shares as co-founder of the energy efficiency start-up Thermondo and
- Nicholas Neerpasch, who, after a career as an architect and managing director of the GFP Group and CEO & co-founder of the modernization management marketplace Doozer, combines traditional real estate project management and PropTech innovation.
As Senior Advisors to the COOPERATIVA Venture Group, the experienced business angels Andreas von Blottnitz and Jan Henric Buettner have also invested in PropTech1 Ventures.
Bringing together the “best of both worlds”
Nikolas Samios, Founding Partner of PropTech1 Ventures, comments on the strategy that is manifested in the selection of venture partners:
"Our approach is to combine the 'best of both worlds' of venture capital methodology and in-depth industry expertise. Our partners support us in selecting the most promising PropTech startups. At the same time, we offer them access to our shareholders' customer base and/or real estate portfolio – without prematurely committing to a single strategic investor."
In addition to the venture partners, the first traditional market participants have already participated in the PropTech1 Ventures project: the listed residential real estate company ACCENTRO Real Estate AG, the real estate project developer FORTIS Group and the real estate investor Mähren AG as well as the entrepreneurs Tomislav Karajica, Marcus Lehmann, Mark Heydenreich, Rackham Felix Schröder, Stefan-Martin Walser and Hannes Kleist.
PropTech1 Ventures will announce its first investments in startups in the near future.
