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roptech’s focus has shifted from flashy marketplace apps to the hidden engines that drive capital flow, construction, energy use, underwriting and finance across the built environment. In 2025, the Center for Real Estate Technology & Innovation (CRETI) reported that the sector had entered a new institutional phase: roughly $16.7 billion of venture and private‑credit capital flowed into commercial real‑estate, construction and infrastructure tech, the most disciplined and strategically focused funding year in the industry’s history. These investments are no longer exploratory; they are building the financial and operational backbone of modern portfolios.
Large owners, operators and lenders have spent the past decade standardizing core platforms—accounting, property management, construction management and data warehouses—making them ready to accept best‑in‑breed solutions rather than the easiest integrations. Artificial intelligence has accelerated product readiness, allowing startups to ship commercial‑ready tools earlier. The winners are those that combine robust functionality with deep vertical specificity, plugging seamlessly into existing enterprise stacks.
Capital now follows that reality. Funding targets platforms that improve underwriting accuracy, asset income, project delivery and energy performance. Seed rounds, once proof‑of‑concept exercises, have become institutional entry points. Growth rounds resemble infrastructure financing, backed by structured credit and long‑duration revenue streams tied to physical assets. Investors across the built world prioritize companies that directly influence cash flow, risk and operational precision.
CRETI’s 2025 data illustrates this trend. The largest deals favored infrastructure‑grade models: Base Power raised $1 billion, Enpal secured a $698 million debt facility, Palmetto raised $420 million, Kiavi locked in a $400 million securitization, and TAB raised $676 million for UK bridge lending. Each reflects a thesis that utility‑like platforms—aggregating demand, underwriting risk and controlling distribution—attract the highest conviction capital.
Construction technology followed a similar path. Investors backed systems that translate job‑site ambiguity into verifiable data for lenders, owners and project teams. Acelab ($16 M Series A), CYVL ($14 M Series A), ConCentric ($10 M Series A), LightYX ($11 M) and Spacial ($10 M) secured funding by demonstrating their ability to document progress, reduce rework and compress pay‑app cycles. The pattern is clear: investors want construction intelligence that produces lender‑acceptable evidence, not optional workflow enhancements.
In commercial real‑estate operations, capital gravitated toward platforms that control financial infrastructure. Vantaca’s $300 M growth round and Baselane’s $20 M Series B underscore a preference for systems that centralize payments, receivables, accounting and compliance. Mid‑market asset‑management platforms such as Arch ($52 M) and GreenLite ($49.5 M) raised on their ability to automate treasury workflows, rent collection and investor reporting—areas where small variances can erode net operating income.
Vertical expertise has become increasingly valuable to investors. As enterprise buyers grow comfortable with complex technology and AI speeds product development, founders benefit most from partners who understand the nuances of their target category. Vertical‑specific, value‑add investors are shaping who wins. Recent activity shows this: JLL Spark Global Ventures invested in Jeeva AI, a company building domain‑specific real‑estate workflows; JLL Spark and Camber Creek backed Ren Systems, a vertically focused operating platform. Horizontal companies are also targeting real‑estate more deliberately, recognizing the demand, readiness and large market—EliseAI, for example, has expanded from real‑estate to health care while still viewing real‑estate as a core wedge.
The result is not a clean split between horizontal and vertical tech but a convergence around vertical outcomes. Even general‑purpose AI or workflow engines are being pulled toward real‑estate‑specific product lines, data models and integrations because sophisticated customers and clear business cases exist there. Defensibility now depends less on claiming to be a horizontal AI platform and more on owning the data loops, integrations and enterprise credibility within a given vertical.
Investor behavior is reshaping. Venture firms that once waited for late‑stage traction now enter earlier, competing for ownership in companies with deep integrations and defensible architectures. Early‑stage rounds increasingly resemble traditional Series A financings in size, diligence and expectations. CRETI analysis shows that one in three seed rounds in 2025 included at least one institutional co‑lead, a sharp departure from historical norms.
The driver remains economic performance. Institutional owners expect technology partners to deliver direct, quantifiable improvements: eliminating discrepancies that distort rent rolls, automating workflows that reduce operating expenses, tightening underwriting to reduce bad debt, and compressing construction timelines that influence internal rates of return. Companies that can demonstrate measurable impact, backed by data, capture the majority of new capital.
Implications ripple across the sector. In construction, intelligence platforms reduce change‑order risk and provide lenders with real‑time field verification. In housing finance, alternative credit platforms use structured capital to expand lending capacity and improve underwriting precision. In property operations, financial operating systems consolidate the back office, replacing manual accounting, payment flows and document processing with automated, audit‑grade systems that slot into existing cores.
Investors reward companies with defensible distribution, embedded integrations and strong data loops, not generic proptech layers that sit outside core operations. Horizontal companies are building real‑estate‑specific modules because the vertical has become both technologically capable and commercially attractive. The market bifurcates: a small cohort of infrastructure‑grade proptech firms compounds quickly, often with specialist investors, while the long tail faces slower raises, valuation pressure or consolidation.
Fundraising expectations have fundamentally shifted. Proptech startups are no longer judged solely on product‑market fit. They must demonstrate enterprise readiness, integration pathways, measurable ROI and system‑level defensibility from the seed stage. Seed is no longer an experiment; it is the institutional starting line.
For the commercial real‑estate industry, the next decade of innovation will be shaped by vertical, domain‑specific platforms that deliver operational accuracy, financial consistency and infrastructure‑level reliability built on top of enterprise stacks that are finally ready to support them. The companies leading these rounds—across energy, construction, finance and property operations—are building the operating systems of the built environment.
Proptech is becoming the new infrastructure of real estate, and firms that recognize this shift early—on both the customer and investor sides—will define the industry’s next generation of winners.
