Commercial real estate just got a little more efficient. CRE data startup Reonomy announced a new $16M funding round led by Bain Capital Ventures.  The startup is also entering a partnership with Newmark Knight Frank, allowing the brokerage to layer Reonomy data atop its own data. We dive into the big problem Reonomy is solving. 

Every day at Dreamit UrbanTech, we interact with new startups transforming this supply chain, and as part of our 14-week growth-focused program, we bring select startups on a 2-week "Investor Roadshow" where they meet with dozens of investors from both generalist firms and from firms focused on real estate, construction, and products for smarter cities. We wanted to share some of our favorite firms focused on the built environment so you can use it as a resource for fundraising. We will continue to maintain this spreadsheet and will be updating it regularly with new venture investors who we meet who are committed to transforming real estate, construction, and the built environment.

Tampa is outfitting a fleet of 1,600 privately owned vehicles with technology that will communicate with roadways and other cars in order to receive various warnings and alerts about roadway conditions, speed limit changes, dangers and more. The project also will connect 10 buses in the area to communicate with traffic signals, which will then prioritize the buses’ movements so they can stay on schedule. 

In smart cities and urban tech,  BIM is one of the main generators of the embedded digital information required to achieve connected cities. more smart building sensors, and enhanced IoT capabilities.  Contractors' understanding of how people really use the built environment (and their own projects) will improve beyond anything previously imagined. Learn how blockchain technology can enable higher levels of BIM adoption. 

There are now about 50 million rental homes in the U.S. with 100 million tenants. And this does not even include commercial spaces. The gatekeepers of this huge market are property managers, notoriously busy people who often manage dozens of properties, all with different needs and requirements. Property management still lags behind other industries in terms of innovation, but managers increasingly see tech products as a way to differentiate their spaces and to save money. This webinar is focused on how to sell to property managers.  

Cities represent a massive untapped market for startups. But many founders see government sales as a risky strategy. In this webinar, we will demystify the B2G sales process and help startup founders chart a successful strategy for B2G sales. We aim to cover topics such as:

The team at Strategic Property Partners, the joint venture between Bill Gates' Cascade Investment and Jeff Vinik, owner of the Tampa Bay Lightning, recently announced a name for their $3B urban redevelopment project: Water Street Tampa. Learn about the project here.

The prop tech market is ready for major growth. Investor confidence in the sector has risen to 8.3 from 8.2 and startup confidence jumped to 7.3 from 6.6 on a scale of 1-to-10, according to the MetaProp Index. These numbers suggest that large real estate incumbents are more eager and willing to adopt tech products created by startups.

Urban technology is a broad category and encompasses startups that operate within a number of other more obviously recognizable sectors, including construction tech, IoT, energy efficiency, big data, prop tech and more. It becomes a little easier to understand what urban tech means when you know about who urban tech actually is. With that idea in mind, here are some of the leading voices in this new movement that is transforming the way we live in and interact with cities. 

This week's most thought-provoking urban tech content. 

Urbanization is a defining process of modern life. More than half of the world’s population now lives in cities, and the number of urban citizens around the world is projected to rise to 66% by 2050. Tech startups will play a critical role in enabling cities to function properly. 

Tampa has a lot going for it, not the least of which is the $3B Urban Redevelopment Initiative being led by Strategic Property Partners, a joint venture between Jeff Vinik and Bill Gates’ Cascade Investment. This tremendous undertaking will create up to 9,000,000 square feet of new commercial, residential, entertainment, cultural, and retail space. 

What we're reading in urban tech news this week... 

Dreamit UrbanTech was created in partnership with Jeff Vinik and his $3B urban redevelopment of the Tampa waterfront (Forbes: Why Jeff Vinik and Bill Gates are Investing $3B in Tampa). Dreamit CEO Avi Savar and Chief Innovation Officer Steve Barsh sat down for a webinar Q&A with Jeff Vinik about the accelerator, the project in Tampa, and the future of cities. Watch the AMA here.

Real estate is the most valuable asset in the world. According to Fortune, all of the world’s real estate is worth more than $217,000,000,000. The construction industry employs 6,000,000 people. It also creates close to $1,000,000,000,000 in buildings and structures each year. Take a moment to think about those statistics. They’re mind-blowing. Land and property are extremely valuable. Businesses that develop property and facilitate the exchange of land are also quite profitable. So why are there not more startups disrupting these industries?