Constance Freedman and Liza Benson
Founder and managing partner; partner at Moderne Ventures
Constance Freedman built her real estate-focused venture capital fund after years of managing a similar fund for the National Association of Realtors. She launched the trade association’s venture capital fund, Second City Ventures, in 2008, and founded its accelerator program in 2013.
Then she decided to strike out on her own in 2015 with the goal of building a similar real estate-focused fund, which became Moderne Ventures. Her partner Liza Benson joined the firm a few years later, kicking the search for potential proptech investments into high gear. In late 2021, Modern Ventures closed a $200 million fund aimed in part at proptech. The fund surpassed its $125 million goal with infusions from the likes of AvalonBay Communities, Camden Property Trust, Greystar, Reology and JBG SMITH.
They specialize in what they call a “passport program,” which helps connect early-stage startups with real estate executives who might want to invest or become customers.
“In our network, we have over 700 industry execs and LPs,” Benson said, “and what the passport program does is put companies through a six-month program to extract as much value from them as we can using our network of real estate figures.”
Moderne Ventures looks for “companies that can help asset owners increase the value of their buildings,” Benson added.
Benson said that she was particularly excited about Moderne’s recent investment in Xeal, a software for electric vehicle chargers that allows customers to pay for charging time without a Wi-Fi connection. Her firm led an $11 million funding round for Xeal with ArcTern Ventures last year. Other investment highlights in a portfolio that touches just about every aspect of proptech include Kaiyo, an online marketplace for secondhand furniture, and Icon, a 3-D printing service for the construction and homebuilding industry.
Icon “actually has 3-D printers in the field that are able to print residential homes in a fraction of the time as traditional construction,” said Benson. “They can literally print the frame of a home in a couple of days.” —R.B.R.
