LONDON, UK — March 10, 2020 – VTS, the commercial real estate industry’s leading leasing and asset management platform, today announced that 2019 was the company’s most successful year to date with 50% of U.S. office buildings now managed on VTS.
The proptech leader also announced record growth in the retail and industrial asset classes – the equivalent of almost two thousand “Westfield London” shopping centres in retail assets are now managed on VTS and the company now counts 2 of the 4 largest global industrial landlords as customers. Over 70,000 office, retail, and industrial properties are now managed on VTS, and more than $85B USD in leases across 40 countries were executed on the platform over the year.
Growth and adoption across EMEA, in particular, doubled for the fourth year in a row. Building on the £97bn GBP of AUM (assets under management) leveraging the platform on a daily basis in London alone, the VTS UK office now supports more than €225bn of AUM, 7,500 properties and 5,000 users in EMEA.
Nick Romito, CEO and Co-Founder, VTS, said: “Our vision has been the same from day one – to be the modern operating system where real-time insights come to life and deals happen. In 2019, we made major strategic investments in our business, product, and team that will enable us to execute the final pieces of this vision and continue our unprecedented momentum – all with the tremendous support of the industry.”
Modern landlords selected VTS as their leasing & asset management platform
In 2019, industry leaders across the office, retail and industrial asset classes chose VTS as the modern system to run their businesses on. New customers using VTS to manage their leasing and asset management processes include Link Industrial Properties, Oxford Properties Group, Starwood Retail Partners, Vornado Realty Trust, First Capital Realty, Crestpoint Real Estate Investments, Waterstone Retail, Gazeley, U+I, Montano Asset Management, S2 Works, Tyndaris and Office First.
Historic Series D funding round led by global owners
In May 2019, VTS announced its $90 million Series D funding round, believed to be the largest venture financing in the history of commercial real estate software. The round was led by Brookfield Ventures, the technology investment arm of Brookfield Asset Management, a VTS customer. Other investors in the round included strategic investor (and VTS customer) GLP, Tishman Speyer, and previous investor Fifth Wall. The raise made VTS one of about 20 firms in the property technology sector ever to become a unicorn, or a privately held startup valued at $1 billion or more.
Strategic acquisition of PropertyCapsule and investment in retail
In October 2019, VTS acquired PropertyCapsule, the leading marketing automation and prospecting software used by more than 50 of the top 100 retail landlords in North America. This acquisition roughly doubled VTS’ retail footprint, bringing it to more than five billion square feet. As part of the acquisition, Thomas Byrne, CEO of PropertyCapsule and former President and COO of LoopNet, joined the VTS team in the newly created position of General Manager of Retail Products and Data, where he oversees strategic direction and delivery of retail offerings.
The acquisition marked the company’s first step in executing its vision for the retail sector where it has invested significant time and resources. It was quickly followed by the launch of VTS Retail–software built specifically for retail landlords to solve complex problems in their leasing process–in January 2020.
Continued international expansion
In August 2019, the company announced a new product development centre in Toronto. The new office will serve as the firm’s first major product development center outside of New York, enabling VTS to access Toronto’s pool of highly skilled product and engineering talent. The company also doubled the size of the team in its London office in 2019 and has aggressive hiring plans for 2020.
Key executive appointments
Throughout 2019, VTS appointed key executive leaders, each bringing invaluable expertise to the company. These included:
- Gijo Mathew as Chief Product Officer to oversee and drive product vision.
- Bob Bies as Chief Financial Officer to oversee financial operations, corporate development, and to guide the team through its next stage of growth.
Unprecedented product innovation
In 2019, VTS dedicated significant resources to product development to bolster the experience of current VTS customers with office, industrial and mixed-use assets, and create entirely new capabilities for the retail sector. A key development was the launch of VTS 3, the next generation of the VTS platform, in January 2019. This major release included business intelligence capabilities that gave users the ability to draw critical insights from large amounts of complex data, and be alerted when action is needed across their portfolio (for example, when a new deal over 100,000 sq ft enters their deal pipeline). With VTS 3, on average, landlords close deals 41% faster.
Gijo Mathew, Chief Product Officer, VTS, said: “It’s been a crucial year at VTS, with an immense focus on enhancing our core software platform and building the new capabilities landlords across all asset classes need to drive key business outcomes. We’ve worked in close partnership with our users to really understand the nuances of the problems they deal with every day and deliver the solutions they need.”
Significant recognition from the CRE and broader business and technology community
The year’s notable achievements did not go unnoticed by the industry. VTS was acknowledged with notable industry awards including:
- REFI Proptech Player of the Year 2020
- 2019 Forbes Cloud 100
- Commercial Observer’s Top Innovator Award 2019
- Real Estate Finance & Investment Magazine’s 2019 Tech Platform of the Year
- CRETech’s Real Estate Tech Award
- Nick Romito was recognised as EY’s Entrepreneur of the Year
VTS also partnered with Out in Tech, the world’s largest community of LGBTQ+ technology professionals that seeks greater diversity, inclusion, and belonging in the technology sector.
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About VTS:
VTS is commercial real estate’s leading leasing, marketing and asset management platform where the industry comes to make deals happen and real-time data come to life. VTS is powered by the largest single source data network in the industry, which delivers real-time data and insights that fuel faster, more informed decision making and connections throughout the deal lifecycle. Our MarketView™ offering, the industry’s first market benchmarking product, and VTS Market and Marketplace, the industry’s first integrated online marketing solution, gives landlords, brokers, and tenants unparalleled visibility into real-time market information and the direct connectivity to execute deals with greater speed and intelligence at every point in the planning, marketing, leasing, and asset management cycle.
More than 60% of Class A commercial space in the US and 12B square feet of commercial real estate globally is managed on the VTS platform. Our user base includes over 45,000 CRE professionals including respected industry leaders like Blackstone, Brookfield Properties, LaSalle Investment Management, Hines, Boston Properties, Oxford Properties, JLL, and CBRE. To learn more about VTS, and to see our open roles, visit vts.com.
Media Contact
Jenna Rorison
E: jenna.rorison@fticonsulting.com
T: 0203 727 1447
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