By Eden
Alex Konoplyasty is a general partner at international technology investment firm Flashpoint Ventures. From that vantage point, he sees the building technology and property sector growing rapidly on Israel’s horizon.
This has been a contributing factor in London-based Flashpoint’s decision to open an office in Tel Aviv in 2019 and announce last March its plan to invest at least $100 million (some 320 million shekels) in new Israeli companies during the next biennium.
“We have $400 million (about 1.3 billion shekels) under our management and Israel has been a very important market for us. We have already invested close to 30 million dollars (about 95 million shekels) of capital in eight Israeli companies,” Konoplyasty told ISRAEL21c in Spanish.
One of the benefited companies is the property management platform Guesty and another is Bllink, a new payment and collection system optimized for tenants and residential managers. “Guesty was the first to ride the wave of cutting-edge technology. It was founded by twin brothers with personal experience in that sector. It was an initial investment but we took the risk because we believed in the project, which was ultimately very successful for us”, said Konoplyasty, who explained that property, construction and real estate are large, broad and conservative markets.
According to the expert, technology took time to enter this market, but several things happened, such as the emergence of alternative business models such as WeWork, Airbnb and Booking.com, which allowed many small entrepreneurs to enter a newly digitized sector.
“The wave we see today is driven by the COVID-19 pandemic as people self-isolate and there is a need for flexible work solutions and remote construction site supervision,” he said.
To meet those needs, in the past four years Israel’s high-tech ecosystem grew nearly 800 percent encompassing around 200 startups today, according to the ConTech Construction Innovation Zone.
Konoplyasty also noted that traditional real estate and construction firms outside of Israel are investing in state-of-the-art Israeli technology and that includes China, the world’s largest construction nation.
Recently, the Haier Israel Innovation Center and its investment fund HCH Ventures led a tour targeting Chinese executives and investors.
The presenter was Amalia Paz, co-founder of the Bricks Proptech Innovation Center, which matches real estate owners, developers and operators in Israel, the US, the UK and Asia with relevant Israeli startups.
“There is not a week in which we do not receive inquiries from the main players in the industry to connect them with relevant technologies from Israel, whether for cooperation or investment,” said Paz, who believes that while the real estate sector can be a “old industry” is as big a market as the newer cybersecurity sector.
“That way,” Paz said, “the opportunity is enormous for both Israeli businessmen and investors.”
Earlier this year, ISRAEL21c reported on 10 Israeli tech solutions for smart and safe construction, but the following is a full list of Israeli high-tech companies that are smartly upgrading real estate.
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Bllink
Omri Peled, founder of Bllink, created the company after an embarrassing episode that happened to him when he was a young student working full time.
Peled had fallen behind on his monthly maintenance payments for the building where he lived, and the property management commission hung a sign on the front door in an attempt to embarrass him in front of the other tenants.
The entrepreneur – who was already working in high technology – developed a digital solution that allows tenants and building maintenance commissions to automatically execute, manage and track all related payments.
Bllink’s product is now used in 35 cities in Israel and has already attracted major investors including Avishai Abrahami, Nir Zohar, Giora Kaplan, Lior Shemesh and Eyal Veitzman, Wix senior executives, as well as Flashpoint VC and Altair Capital.
In 2022, Bllink plans to expand to Europe, where it will focus more on processing rental payments.
2. Lendai
After that, Leviatan and three friends – Yair Benyamini, Erez Dricker and Tim Mironov – created Lendai to enable foreign clients to obtain mortgages on American properties. Boaz Leviatan had a finance professor at IDC Herzliya who owned family properties in USA. While looking to invest in additional real estate, the teacher applied for a mortgage at his US bank but was turned down because he had no US credit score.
His mortgage application to his Israeli bank was also rejected because they were unable to assess the proposed American property.
Its unique technology determines the present and future value and cash flow of the property; the probability of recovering the capital lost through the property if the borrower defaults on the loan; and the solvency of the foreign investor.
“We started with Israelis who wanted to buy from Georgia. By the end of the year we will be working in 12 US states. Canadians are our biggest market and we also work with the British and Australians,” Benyamini told ISRAEL21c in Spanish.
The entrepreneur will move to Florida (USA) to open Lendai’s headquarters in North America, although the research and development section will remain in Israel.
3. SolidBlock
SolidBlock, a portfolio company of Israeli fintech investment fund BuiltUp Ventures, offers a platform for transforming real estate into tradable digital stocks.
For investors, tokenization offers control over when to invest in a project and the ability to trade and settle on demand. For homeowners It is an efficient way to raise capital from a broader pool of potential investors.
Jerusalem-based SolidBlock recently partnered with Blue Horizon Developments to tokenize The Beachfront hotel in Phuket, Thailand, becoming the first real estate project to raise money on blockchain in Thailand.
4. Localize.city
Localize.city is a company that created a novel engine that extracts useful information about any address in New York City from thousands of data sets and the use of artificial intelligence to help potential buyers and renters make more informed decisions. about advantages and disadvantages of a property.
The solution searches for any address in the five boroughs of New York City, and the findings are instantly presented in the form of up to 30 briefly worded ideas about pricing, transportation, livability, surrounding community, and potential neighborhood nuisances.
5. Qbiq
When artificial intelligence meets architecture the answer is Qbiq.
Founded in 2018 by Leeor Solnik, Noam Diamantstein and Elad Kaminer, this company offers real estate developers, brokers and architects an automated design plan based on data optimized for utilization, costs, construction time, efficiency and other factors. annexes.
The platform includes intelligent evaluation tools, comparisons, and 3D visualization to test concepts, close deals faster, and improve deal engagement and conversion rates.
It also offers automatic validation of architectural drawings based on local regulations, compliance, building restrictions, and company standards.
6. Lendlord
Through its website and mobile app, the Lendlord company provides homeowners with ongoing metrics on portfolio health, historical growth trends, suggestions on potential mortgage cost savings, upcoming due dates and more.
Furthermore, Lendlord also offers personalized loans to finance new ventures or refinance existing loans. Currently, this platform manages about 12,000 properties worth approximately 4,000 million dollars.
7. Jones
Michael Rudman and Omri Stern, co-founders of Jones, spent years servicing commercial real estate and found that stringent insurance requirements make it difficult for providers to honor all properties.
So it was that in 2017, they decided to simplify risk and compliance for commercial property managers with the use of software and artificial intelligence.
Today, thanks to its solution, the supplier approval process is reduced from the usual 12 days to 2.5 days with an accuracy of 99.9 percent. The company’s compliance data platform also serves as a trusted vendor marketplace.
In 2020 Jones won the Real Estate Tech Award (RETA) in the Insurance category.
His clients include large US real estate companies such as Lincoln Property Company, Prologis, DivcoWest, Rudin Management, Sage Realty and JLL.
8. FlipOS
FlipOS, a product of Tel Aviv’s Stoa Fund, targets US real estate investors who buy assets with the intention of renovating and reselling them for a profit.
The service provides them with online tools for faster and more secure repair and exchange deals, including cash-in-advance offers, low-cost loans and inspections.
So far, FlipOS is available in select counties in Arizona and Florida.
9. Zorba
Years ago, Or Preiss co-founded an esports gaming site while his older brother Itai operated in the US real estate market.
When the brothers joined forces with Kobi Mantzur—formerly the developer of MyHeritage and Isracard—Zorba was born, a social marketplace that streamlines off-market deals between real estate wholesalers and vetted cash buyers.
“We saw a great opportunity to use my knowledge gained over the last decade to standardize the market and make it better for both parties. Buyers today have access to hidden deals, they can schedule a tour from the app and make an offer through the app, giving them an edge over other shoppers. Wholesalers can help homeowners sell faster for cash in tough situations like probate or divorce. We help them solve all the problems,”.
10. Home365
Founded in 2016, Home365 is a fast-growing hybrid company of edge technology and security technology. Its machine learning subscription engine predicts maintenance, repairs, and other resident-related events, ensuring small and midsize homeowners a fixed return on monthly investment.
“Focused on delivering passive and predictable financial results, the Home365 platform created a new asset class that transforms the risky nature of being a real estate investor into a fully accessible ‘savings account’ experience,” explained Daniel Shaked, founder and CEO of Home365, to ISRAEL21c in Spanish.
With its recent acquisition of the US-based SlateHouse Property Management and Realty, and the closing of a $16.3 million financing round led by Greensoil PropTech Ventures II, Home365 already manages some 7,000 units in six US states for a total value of about 1,000 million dollars.
Their new 40-agent real estate division makes it easy to buy and sell investment properties in many different regions using their appraisal tools.
Source: Israel21c