Real estate titan Patrizia launches Sustainable Future Ventures

Patrizia AG, a global manager of real estate and infrastructure assets, has held a first close on €50 million ($52.8 million) for a new fund called Sustainable Future Ventures.

The fund has a target of €100 million. Investors in the first close include pension funds and family offices, as well as strategic real estate operators and investors.

Investment in real estate technology companies has soared in recent years. It hit a high of $23.4 billion last year, up from $8.5 billion in 2020 and $18.3 billion in 2019, according to PitchBook. The number of real estate tech companies backed by VCs went from 908 in 2019 to 827 in 2020, then up to 1,038 last year, PitchBook reported.

As of June 22, VCs have invested $8.8 billion in 501 real estate tech companies this year, PitchBook said.

“Besides real estate and infrastructure, venture capital as a product offers our clients the potential for attractive investment returns and strategic advantages, particularly for investors with real estate portfolios,” Wolfgang Egger, CEO and founder of Patrizia, said in a statement.

The newly launched fund, which is the first in a new fund series, is led by partners Conan Lauterpacht and Matthew Chagan. It will target investments in technology companies that enable a more sustainable built environment. The pool will focus on late seed to Series B investments, with a strong focus on Europe.

So far, Sustainable Future Ventures has made two investments: GBuilder and Liftango. Headquartered in Finland, GBuilder is a building information modelling customer journey management platform. Liftango is an Australian provider of software that powers shared transport to reduce carbon emissions from the built environment.

“Reducing our carbon footprint in construction and real estate is the biggest challenge of our time, so funding the companies who are at the cutting edge of sustainable innovation is absolutely essential,” Egger said.

Patrizia manages more than €55 billion in assets and employs over 1,000 professionals at 27 locations worldwide.