Today, Real Estate Technology Ventures (RET Ventures) announced the final close of $108 million for its first fund.  RET focuses on early-stage investments in companies that are primarily looking to disrupt the North American multifamily rental industry, with the firm boasting a roster of LPs made up of some of the largest property owners and operators in the multifamily space.

RET is one of the latest in a rising number of venture firms focused on the real-estate sector, which by many accounts, has yet to experience significant innovation or technological disruption. 

The firm was founded in 2017 by managing director, John Helm, who possesses an extensive background as an operator and investor in both real estate and real estate technology.  Helm’s real-estate journey began with a position right out of college and eventually led him to the commercial brokerage giant Marcus Millichap, where he worked as CFO before leaving to build two venture-backed real estate technology companies.  After successfully selling both companies, Helm worked as a Venture Partner at Germany-based DN Capital, where he invested in companies such as PurpleBricks and Auto1. 

Speaking with investors and past customers, John realized that there was a need for a venture fund specifically focused on the multifamily rental sector.  RET points out that while multifamily properties have traditionally fallen under the commercial real estate umbrella, operators are forced to deal with a wide set of idiosyncratic dynamics unique to the vertical.  In fact, outside of a select group, most of the companies and real estate investment trusts that invest in multifamily tend to invest strictly within the sector.

Now, RET has partnered with leading multifamily owners to help identify innovative startups that can help the LPs better run their portfolios, which account for nearly a million units across the country in aggregate.  With its deep sector expertise and its impressive LP list, RET believes it can bring tremendous value to entrepreneurs by providing access to some of the largest property owners in the US, effectively shortening a notoriously lengthy sales cycle and making it much easier to scale.

Photo: Alexander Kirch/Shutterstock

One of the first companies reaping the benefits of RET’s deep ties to the real estate industry is SmartRent, the startup providing a property analytics and automation platform for multifamily property managers and renters.  Today, SmartRent announced it had closed $5 million in series A financing, with seed investor RET providing the entire round. 

SmartRent essentially provides property managers with many of the smart home capabilities that have primarily been offered to consumers to date, making it easier for them to monitor units remotely, avoid costly damages and streamline operations, all while hopefully enhancing the resident experience through all-in-one home controls.

By combining connected devices with its web and mobile platform, SmartRent hopes to provide tools that can help identify leaks or faulty equipment, eliminate energy waste, and provide remote access control for door locks.  The functions provided by SmartRent are particularly valuable when managing vacant units, in which leaks or unnecessary energy consumption can often go unnoticed, leading to multimillion-dollar damage claims or inflated utility bills. SmartRent also attempts to enhance the leasing process for vacant units by pre-screening potential renters that apply online and allowing qualified applicants to view the unit on their own without a 3rd party sales agent.

Just like RET, SmartRent is the brainchild of accomplished real-estate industry vets. Founder and CEO, Lucas Haldeman, was still the CTO of Colony Starwood’s single-family portfolio when he first rolled out an early version of the platform in around 26,000 homes.  Haldeman quickly realized how powerful the software was for property managers and decided to leave his C-suite position at the publicly-traded REIT to found SmartRent.

According to RET, the strong industry pedigree of the founding team was one of the main drivers behind its initial investment in SmartRent and is one of the main differentiators between the company and its competitors.

With RET providing access to its leading multifamily owner LPs, SmartRent has been able to execute on a strong growth trajectory so far, with the company on pace to complete 15,000 installations by the end of the year and an additional 35,000 apartments committed for 2019.  And SmartRent seems to have a long runway ahead.  The platform can be implemented in any type of rental property, from retrofit homes to high rises, and has only penetrated a small portion of the nearly one million units owned by RET’s LPs alone.

SmartRent has now raised $10 million to date and hopes to use this latest round of funding to ramp growth by broadening its sales and marketing efforts.  Longer-term, SmartRent hopes to permeate throughout the entire multifamily industry while continuing to improve and iterate on its platform.

“We’re so early on and we’ve made great progress, but we want to make deep penetration into this industry,” said Haldeman.  “There are millions of apartment units and we want to be over 100,000 by year one, and over a million units by year three.  At the same time, we’re continuing to enhance our offering and we’re focused on growing and expanding.”

As for RET Ventures, the firm hopes the compelling value proposition of its deep LP and industry network can help RET become the go-to venture firm startups looking to disrupt the real estate rental sector.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | “Rent tech” focused RET closes first fund; pours M into management platform SmartRent

Wellness app Calm has today announced a $3 million equity investment in XpresSpa Group, a fast-spa service you may have noticed in your local airport. Calm sees the investment as a way to expand its offline presence, growing awareness of the app as well as its retail products like Sleep Mist and the Calm Book.

Calm subscribers will have access to a variety of in-store benefits and treatments at one of 52 XpresSpa locations in cities like Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and New York.

As investor and general interest around mental health and wellness grows, Calm has carved out its slice of the pie. The company has raised $28.5 million from investors Insight Venture Partners and Ashton Kutcher’s Sound Ventures, with a $250 million valuation.

The app is, for all intents and purposes, a content hub for folks looking to bring more calm into their life. This can range from in-the-moment meditation sessions to tracks to help you sleep. The company has also introduced a music hub and a video hub for “mindful movement and gentle stretching.”

A Calm subscription costs $69.99/year. The app has 36 million users, with more than 1 million paid users.

“The greatest challenge (and opportunity) for Calm is waking people up to mental fitness,” said Dun Wang, VP of Product & Growth, in an email. “It’s becoming more and more common now, but it’s definitely been a challenge for us. We have a massive poster of a 1970s People Magazine cover in our office. Farrah Fawcett is on the cover in this crazy 70s workout get up and the cover reads “the craze of jogging.” Mental fitness is growing in both importance and popularity, similarly to physical fitness in the 70s.”

Here’s what cofounder and co-CEO Michael Acton Smith had to say in a prepared statement:

The need for mental fitness in our stressed, fast-paced world is clear, and we’ve already seen a tremendous increase in our digital user base, growing 110% percent in downloads this year. By partnering with XpresSpa, we’re expanding beyond our core app offering to reach more offline consumers, and dialing in on a common consumer pain point: traveler stress.

With the XpresSpa partnership, Calm can capitalize on the stress of travel, not only converting people over to the app but doing so at a time when the user is likely to engage.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Calm heads to the airport, invests million in XpresSpa

For Days, a clothing startup that wants to reduce the enormous amount of textile waste created annually, announced today that it has raised $2.8 million in  seed funding. The round led by Rosecliff Ventures joined by Collaborative Fund, with participation from Congruent Ventures, Third Prime Capital, Closed Loop Ventures, Bleu Capital, Gramercy Fund, and Ride Ventures. For Days’ makes its clothing with a closed-loop manufacturing and recycling process enabled by a T-shirt membership programs that lets customers mail back worn shirts for recycling in exchange for new ones.

While there is a growing roster of brands focused on quality sustainable clothing, including Everlane and Alternative Apparel (and a growing community of DIYers who want to reduce their environmental and social impact by making their own clothes), a lot of wardrobe basics, like T-shirts, socks, and underwear, need to be replaced more frequently than jackets, sweaters, or jeans.

CEO Kristy Caylor, who co-founded For Days with Mary Saunders, worked at Gap and Band of Outsiders before helping launch sustainable clothing brand Maiyet. One of the reasons For Days decided to start with T-shirts (it plans to launch more product categories early next year) is “because they are one of the most historically iconic items of clothing and span generation, gender, and culture,” Caylor told TechCrunch in an email. “But ultimately, For Days is a platform for circular consumption. We will expand as far as we can innovate on materials, manufacturing and up-cycling and welcome partnerships and collaboration as we grow.”

Sustainable clothing brands like For Days are trying to solve a serious problem. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, more than 15 million tons of textile waste is generated annually in the United States and each year Americans on average throw away about 80 pounds of used clothing per person.

Even if they are diligent about donating their clothes, most of it ends up in the landfill anyway. In 2015, the EPA reported that of the 16 million tons of textile waste generated that year, only 2.45 million tons were recycled, while 10.53 million tons were thrown away. One reason recycling is not more widespread may be because the process of turning old material into new, usable textiles is still complicated, especially for blended fabrics like cotton/polyester.

To keep more items from ending up in landfills, For Days created a manufacturing and recycling program that gives it control over almost every part of an item’s lifespan. Its T-shirts are made in its Los Angeles factory from USA-grown organic cotton and sold to customers through an annual membership program that costs $38 for one T-shirt, $108 for three, $210 for six, and $340 for 10.

All levels include free shipping and unlimited “refreshes” for $8 per T-shirt, which means customers can send back their used For Days clothing in a prepaid mailer in exchange for any item on its site. The company says the average lifespan of one of its T-shirts depends on the style, but its members have been exchanging items every three to six months.

For Days recycles the used shirts by breaking them down into pulp, which is then blended with fresh organic fiber, and spun into yarn that the company says has a 70/30 blend of new and recycled fibers. That yarn is then used to make new For Days clothing.

The company launched its membership program in May 2018 to a waitlist before opening to the public in September. While For Days isn’t disclosing specific user numbers yet, Caylor says its been growing by double digits monthly. For Days claims it has moved 1,500 pounds of clothing through its closed-loop system, keeping them away from landfills, and saved more than 235,000 gallons of water and 2,400 pounds of CO2 by making their shirts out of 100 percent GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard)-certified organic cotton.

In a press statement, Collaborative Fund managing director Taylor Greene said “Collaborative Fund began with a thesis that a sharing economy would emerge to monetize underutilized assets and ensure more efficient and sustainable consumption of resources. So far, most companies have sought to either innovate on the materials or the business model, but few have successfully combined the two. Now, more than ever, we need businesses like For Days to exist and we couldn’t be more excited to join Kristy, Mary and their team on this journey.”

In 2019, For Days has plans to design its own factory in Hawthorne, Ca and launch a zero-waste manufacturing initiative that will be built around renewable energy and water reclamation programs and biomimicry, a process that uses technology to imitate systems and materials found in nature and is being used by researchers to create more sustainable textiles and dyes.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Sustainable clothing startup For Days raises .8M for its closed-loop manufacturing process