Brad Greiwe and Brendan Wallace
Co-founders and managing partners at Fifth Wall Ventures
Last year's rank: 53
As proptech has grown throughout the global real estate industry, perhaps no other technology venture capital firm has represented the segment’s present and future power as has Fifth Wall.
Since Fifth Wall’s creation seven years ago, Brad Greiwe and Brendan Wallace have built a firm with $3.2 billion in commitments and capital under management through its more than 110 partnerships with traditional real estate companies.
“The unique nature of how we’ve done that is obviously in the intimate partnership with the incumbents, many of whom are strategic LPs in our funds,” said Greiwe, referring to Fifth Wall’s limited partners. “Growing up together and navigating that in a true dynamic partnership reaffirmed that this is of interest and worth not just in capital, but in the time and resources of the incumbency.
“We’ve gained the trust of those incumbents, and in doing so have helped them think through the opportunities and disruption that type of technology represents and to help them navigate that appropriately. We’ve allowed them to invest in our funds and directly into [proptech] companies through commercial partnerships in any number of different ways — and, in doing so, you know, started to generate real demonstrable results.”
More recently, Fifth Wall has expanded its proptech scope to focus more on sustainability in the built world.
Coming out of the pandemic, Greiwe saw that the real estate industry might retrench and back off from technology. However, he said he was pleased to see there has not been a backward movement to business as usual.
“I think the encouraging thing that we’ve seen and what we’re really excited about is [incumbents] have leaned more into technology and decarbonization because it has become a core component of their business,” Greiwe said. “And they do view it as truly differentiated and helping them navigate not just great times, but also the tough times. That’s really encouraging to see and something that we hope continues to allow us to be a relevant player in the space moving forward.”
Counting partnerships like those with incumbent powerhouses CBRE, Cushman & Wakefield, Hines, Invesco, Lennar, Marriott, Prologis, Related Companies and Toll Brothers, Fifth Wall is positioned to be a long-term influencer injecting technology into real estate.
