CREtech RETAS 2021 Winners Announced

The RETAS are the most important awards for commercial real estate startups and property technology companies, and this year they were particularly important for LMRE as Louisa Dickins was a judge on the panel.

The awards are an international competition honouring the most innovative and cutting-edge companies who have played an integral role in advancing tech in the real estate industry. Hosted by CREtech for the eighth year running, the RETAS provides winners with valuable brand recognition and validation as a leading technology provider. Grand prize winners are given the chance to host a live demo at CREtech New York or CREtech London, two of the largest real estate networking events in the world. Additionally, winners receive brand recognition through CREtech’s newsletters and announcement emails that are sent to a global community of over 70,000 real estate and tech professionals.

CREtech (cretech.com), is the largest international community of professionals devoted to technological innovation in the real estate sector. Their mission is to help the industry embrace, adopt, and future proof its businesses. They do this by streaming, live/virtual events, and a consultative platform that inspires the next generation of ideas, processes, and people to champion the world’s largest asset class.

Here is a look at this year’s renowned judges:

• Ashkán Zandieh: Founder of RE:Tech (acquired by CREtech), Founder & Chairman of the Center for Real Estate Technology & Innovation
• Louisa Dickins: Co-Founder of LMRE
• Gary Chimwa: Founder of FUTURE PropTech (acquired by CREtech) and Founder of Mentorship Hub
• Mark Grinis: Global Real Estate, Hospitality & Construction Leader at EY
• Craig Robinson : Prop Tech Exec and Board Director
• Andrew Ackerman: Venture Partner, Dreamit and Strategic Advisor, Second Century Ventures

At LMRE, we caught up with our very own Louisa Dickins, who had this to say about the competition:

The winners have now been announced so let’s dive deeper into each category’s grand prize winner and runners-up:

Emerging Startup Category.

The grand prize winner in this category is Jones. Jones is a software company that took one of the most archaic workflows in commercial real estate, insurance liability management and automated it. They partner with real estate owners, operators and builders to help automate their insurance ops and make the process much smoother for each stakeholder. Every step of the process is digitized from extraction and collection to approvals and resolution — across any asset in real estate all from one simple application and API, making the process much smoother for all stakeholders in the value chain.

Founded in 2017 by Michael Rudman, Omri Stern, this Series A has raised $20.5M. Investors include Khosla Ventures, DivcoWest, Sage Realty, Camber Creek, and JLL Spark to name a few.

Runners up in this category were Facilio, ingeniousIO, and NavigatorCRE!

Mid Market Growth Category.

The winner for this category is Cherre. Cherre is an industry leader in real estate data and insight. They connect decision makers to accurate property and market information, and help them make faster, smarter decisions. This is done by providing a unique “single source of truth,” Cherre empowers customers to evaluate opportunities and trends faster and more accurately, while saving millions of dollars in manual data collection and analytics costs.

Founded in 2016 by Ben Hizak, L.D. Salmanson and Riju Pahwa, this Series B has raised $75M. Investors include Navitas Capital, Trustbridge Partners, and Silicon Valley Bank.

Runners up in this category include: Dealpath, HqO, and TheGuarantors.

Mature Growth Company Category.

The grand prize winner in this category is VTS. VTS is a real estate CRM software company bringing landlords, brokers, and tenants together to make deals happen. The company empowers landlords and brokers to better attract, convert, and retain valuable assets and tenants by centralizing all the critical data and workflows in one place. Founded with a mission to revolutionize commercial real estate through innovation, VTS is a leasing and asset management platform. The company provides an easy-to-use, intuitive platform that empowers commercial real estate professionals to work smarter not harder. It delivers a modern toolset to unlock the full potential of a portfolio.

Founded in 2012 by Brandon Weber, Donald DeSantis, Karl Baum, Niall Smart, Nicholas Romito, Ryan Masiello, this Series D has raised over $187.4M. Investors include Tishman Speyer, Fifth Wall and Trinity Ventures.

Runners up in this category were Building Engines, Inc., essensys, and View, Inc.

As the Proptech landscape is changing these awards shed light on those making a real impact and shaping the future of the industry. Congratulations to all who won on behalf of LMRE.