Pi Labs wraps up $90 million fund to back startups disrupting real estate world

With over $60 billion of venture capital, private equity, M&A and IPO funding flowing into the proptech sector last year, the sector seems to be growing leaps and bounds. Tapping into this potential, London-based proptech venture capital firm Pi Labs has secured $90 million for its oversubscribed fund.

The VC company will identify and invest in the next generation of proptech startups that have developed proprietary technology to enhance any stage of the real estate value chain. This includes technologies that address sustainability challenges and help real estate owners achieve their decarbonisation goals, construction operations, the future of work and retail, metaverse, retail, robotics adoption, and the enablement of smart cities.

The fund’s primary focus will be to invest in early stage proptech startups – from pre-seed to series A stage – around the world, with average investments ranging from $500,000-$1.5 million per deal, plus follow-on capital. Looking to back the next global proptech unicorn, it will also deploy capital during later stage rounds to turbocharge the scale-up of the sector’s most promising companies, in addition to funding the best-performing startups from its portfolio over the life cycle of their growth journey.

Pi Labs’ third proptech fund and its largest to date will support the company’s ambition to almost double its portfolio to more than 100 companies by 2025. The company has a portfolio of 60 companies across 15 countries and four continents currently.

The final close saw the participation of blue-chip institutional investors from around the world, including Dutch pension provider APG, UAE developer Aldar Properties, London real estate developer Sellar, King’s Cross Central Limited Partnership (represented by Argent and also including AustralianSuper and Federated Hermes), Hong Kong-based developers Sino Group and Swire Properties, Nordic sustainable construction solutions firm Kiilto, Canadian Hopewell Group and Germany’s Jaeger Gruppe.

Pi Labs has already completed 21 investments from capital deployed from Fund III, including US-based warehouse management platform Fulfilld’s $2.5 million seed round, which involved former Amazon CEO Jeff Wilke, in addition to London-based augmented reality startup Dent Reality’s $3.4 million seed round, as well as Vienna-based sustainability startup GreenPass.

Faisal Butt, founder and CEO, Pi Labs, said: “Raising close to $100 million against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic is unprecedented for a fund that primarily targets early-stage proptech ventures. The global profile of our latest fund’s LPs reflects the surge in institutional allocation towards the proptech sector, and an increased awareness of how startups are successfully scaling and solving critical, large-scale industry issues.”