John Helm, Christopher Yip and Jameson Hartman
Founder and partner; partner; and vice president at RET Ventures
RET Ventures’ second consecutive year on the Power Proptech list should come as no surprise to those who follow the multifamily sector and technology.
However, the Park City, Utah-based venture capital firm’s performance over the last year has made this recognition especially appropriate for looking back on the company’s growth, said Christopher Yip.
“It’s been a good time for reflection for us over the last year,” Yip said. “We’ve been going now as RET for seven years, and in the last two months we had our largest annual summit ever of our strategic investors, who are now north of 50 owners, operators and developers of real estate. It’s not one event in the last year that got us here, but it’s been a nice culmination of seven years of work.”
Founded by John Helm, the firm is the first industry-backed seed-stage venture fund focused on building innovative real estate technology companies with a focus on the multifamily and single-family rental industries. Smart choice, as both industries are now among the strongest in commercial real estate.
In 2022, the growing firm promoted Jameson Hartman to vice president. Hartman works on new investments; environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) areas; and in building RET’s network of owner-operators to increase the company’s collaborative ecosystem. RET’s growth includes owner-operator investors who control more than 3 million rental units, and the VC firm has invested in more than 40 startups addressing the market.
“We have some of our strategic investors using six to nine of our portfolio companies,” Yip said. “And, so, I think it’s really special, as well, to see how all that has come together in our ecosystem.”
RET’s future includes working with some of its large portfolio companies such as Funnel to drive centralization in property management, according to Yip.
“We’re now shifting our focus to using technology for maintenance, as well as targeting better processes for procurement services,” he said.
