The US is the largest PropTech market in the world with a market share of nearly 60%. Sustainability is a highly important topic nowadays, urban areas are becoming more populated and new technologies are changing the way buildings are being built and operated. All these trends are shaping the industry in 2023 and it will be beneficial to find out who the current leaders on the market are.
To compile this ranking, we are referring to the most amount of funding a US-based PropTech company has received within the last 10 years. This information is retrieved from crunchbase.com and then ranked accordingly. Company’s that are not existing anymore, even though they have had a high amount of funding, will not be included.
Top 5 US PropTech Companies in 2023
- WeWork
- AirBnB
- OpenDoor
- Compass
- REEF
US PropTech Trends 2023
In 2023, sustainability is becoming more important than ever before. This includes environmental, social and economic sustainability. In order to create efficient and green cities, new smart technologies will be implemented on a large scale. Furthermore, new building materials, such as timber, will find more application in modern real estate.
Other trends are an increase in the visualization of the planning, design, construction and operating phase of buildings. Also, Virtual Reality will be used more often for home tours. To improve the transaction process, automation and AI will speed up the valuation of buildings. From an investing perspective, fractional ownership or crowdfunding is becoming more popular in 2023.
Top 5 US PropTech Companies in 2023
1 | WeWork
The most funded PropTech company in the US is “WeWork” which received a total of about $22 billion. In their latest round in October 2021, they got an additional $150 million from Cushman & Wakefield. In 2010, Adam Neumann, Miguel McKelvey and Rebekah Neumann have founded WeWork, which is currently situated in New York City.
WeWork is a serviced and shared office provider that is operating in more than 120 cities around the world. They offer different types of working spaces with the most simple one being a desk in a shared space, followed by a small lockable office. Bigger options for larger companies are personal spaces for more than 20 people or even whole floors in a building for more than 100 employees. All of WeWork’s offices come with a variety of amenities or services included, such as high-speed internet, printing, on-site support, mail handling, cleaning, a private reception and more.
The revenue in the third quarter of 2021 for WeWork amounted to $661 million and their total EBITDA loss equalled $356 million. As of today, the company has not been profitable and its planned IPO in 2019 has been postponed till the end of 2021. After going public via the SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company) “Bowx Acquisition Corp”, WeWork has been valued at $9 billion. This is substantially less than the $47 billion valuation in 2019 by Softbank.
2 | AirBnB
On the second place of the top 5 US PropTech companies in 2023 by funding, is “Airbnb” with a total of $6 billion. The vacation rental marketplace was founded in 2008 by Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk. Airbnb’s headquarter is located in San Francisco, California.
The platform currently has over 5.6 million listings offered by more than 4 million hosts. Airbnb’s website and mobile application allow their 150 million active users to book a variety of accommodations including apartments, luxury villas, castles, boats, islands and even treehouses. The intuitive search function makes it very simple to find the ideal vacation rental quickly and establishes communication between the landlord and tenant after a decision has been made. Even though Airbnb’s revenue was continuously increasing until 2019, many new challenges appeared for the company after the covid-19 pandemic started. In addition to this problem, some countries have put restrictions on holiday rentals which include that landlords must be registered or that apartments can only be rented for a certain number of days per year.
In December 2020, Airbnb had its IPO and became a public company on the Nasdaq with the ticker “ABNB”. In late 2020, the business had been valued in the range of $75 to $100 billion.
3 | OpenDoor
The third-largest PropTech company in the US is “OpenDoor”. The real estate marketplace has received $1.9 billion in funding, of which $400 million have been contributed by BlackRock and the Ontario Pension Plan in December 2020. Eric Wu, Ian Wong, JD Ross and Keith Rabois established the business in 2014, in San Francisco.
OpenDoor has an innovative business model that allows its customers to immediately sell their residential properties for cash. Before purchasing a home, they offer a free valuation to estimate the sales price. From this transaction, the company is taking a fee that is similar to the one agents charge. After acquiring the property, OpenDoor makes necessary repairs to it and then resells it on the market within approximately 90 days. Since the company is purchasing homes in a short amount of time, these properties must comply with specific standards. Only single-family homes, townhouses, duplexes and condos can be sold that are not valued at more than $1.4 million. Usually, the building should be built after 1930 and have a maximum lot size of 2 acres. These guidelines can vary between different states and cities. In addition to the quick sales service, OpenDoor helps people to buy new homes and also provides mortgages.
In 2020, the company’s revenue was approximately $2.58 billion and their net income equalled a negative $287 million. On December 21, OpenDoor went public with the SPAC “Social Capital”. Their current market cap is at around $5.8 billion.
4 | Compass
“Compass” is in place four of the top 5 US PropTech Companies in 2023 with $1.5 billion in funding. The New York-based business has been founded by Ori Allon, Robert Reffkin and Ugo Di Girolamo in 2012.
The mission of the company is to help every person find their best home by providing a modern, as well as, intelligent online real estate platform. Compass hired more than 25,000 real estate agents that support their customers with the transaction process and can collaborate together on the platform. They mostly focus on residential properties that are being sold, rented or are new developments. All of these homes can be found by using their own search function, which is integrated into the website. Furthermore, Compass offers financing services that help customers find the right loan. Another way the company helps homeowners is its concierge service, which provides money for repairing the property, cleaning, staging, and improvements that potentially increase the sales value. The money has to be paid back without any interest, once the home is sold, the contract is terminated, or 12 months have passed.
Compass’ revenue for the year 2020 equaled $3.72 billion and their net income was negative $270 million. Similar to the other top 5 US PropTech companies, Compass recently had its IPO. After they went public in April 2021, the business had been valued at approximately $7 billion.
5 | REEF
Fifth place in our ranking is “REEF”. The company, which has its headquarter in Miami, Florida, received $1.5 billion in funding. In their latest private equity round in November 2020, REEF gained $700 million from investors such as Mubadala Capital Ventures and SoftBank. The business was founded by Ari Ojalvo, Aziz Ihsanoglu, Philippe Saint-Just and Umut Tekin in 2013 and is Miami’s first “unicorn”.
REEF’s vision is to create a neighbourhood that people love to live in, with jobs, green spaces, food and a close community. To achieve this, the company wants to create more value and revenue streams from existing urban real estate, restaurants and parking lots. This includes creating delivery kitchens, micro-warehouses, retail hubs, hospitality and even healthcare services for the local community. Once an owner of a property signs up to cooperate with REEF, their team is analysing the site and researching which type of use case would fit the best. In order to create the most value, the company is partnering up with various businesses, such as Deliveroo, Doordash, Unilever, Uber Eats and Transport For London.
In 2018, REEF has already been valued at more than $1 billion, making it a “unicorn”. They are currently the largest operator of parking real estate and delivery kitchens in North America and are operating in more than 5,000 locations.
Conclusion
The US is home to some of the biggest PropTech companies in the world. Only the first five places combined account for nearly $33 billion in funding. In 2020, the US takes about 60% of the global PropTech market share.
The top 5 US PropTech companies in 2023 are relatively different from each other and don’t necessarily show a pattern such as India, the UK or Germany. There are flexible office spaces, vacation rentals, brokerage platforms and a local neighbourhood transformation platform.
If you want to learn more about PropTech, smart cities and buildings, sustainability and commercial real estate, feel free to take a look at our other articles.
