RANCHO SANTA FE, CA—Metis, a commercial real estate-focused technology platform provider, has introduced MREN, the very first “Principal-to-Principal only” global CRE transaction platform. The Metis Real Estate Platform (MREN) is positioned to be the “disrupter” of a $15 trillion commercial real estate industry by supporting principal stakeholders from both sides of a transaction to directly connect, collaborate, and close.

MREN is a secured platform that provides participants with their own private marketplace, executing variety of real estate strategies, whether targeted or accessed via the public market. MREN not only provides participants access to a broad universe of opportunities, buyers and capital, it also offers management support throughout the life cycle of the investment before, during and after a transaction.

MREN is available to a wide variety of capital participants. In addition to traditional players such as real estate investment funds, REITs, life companies, private real estate companies, and family offices, it has access to unique capital platforms such as Atom Assets, a Hong Kong-based investment club platform for ultra-high net-worth individuals and family offices.

Commercial real estate industry veterans Joy Hou and Floyd Kephart founded Metis in 2013 with a $7 million seed investment secured from a Hong Kong-based family office and active global commercial real estate investor.

“The biggest challenge in commercial real estate is fragmentation, but at the same time, the interest in commercial real estate opportunity is global. MREN is set to connect all CRE principal stakeholders globally and create a win-win environment for all parties involved in a transaction,” said Joy Hou, Co-founder and CEO, Metis. “The universe of capital interest in US real estate has recently expanded with increasing interest from family offices and foreign capital. In fact, there was $40 billion of cross border capital that came into the US in 2014, and we expect that number to increase significantly this year as a result of the recent law changes in China that permit institutional capital to invest in foreign real estate.”

Metis was created with a mission to bring technology to the traditional commercial real estate industry that is one of the last industries to be transformed by technology. Over the past two years the company has been operating largely in stealth mode establishing alliances, expanding its network and developing proprietary technology in preparation for the launch of MREN.

“We are actively looking for attractive commercial real estate opportunities in the US, which traditionally can be a long arduous process,” said Ariel Shtarkman, managing director and co-founder, Atom Assets. “The launch of MREN will not only provide us with greater access to US opportunities and operators – we are also utilizing the proprietary technology that MREN has created in order to manage our investments, from due diligence to closing and execution, to asset management.” MREN is designed to minimize the process-oriented aspect of complex CRE transactions with respect to data and documents and maximize the support of communication and collaboration for all participating professionals. MREN also offers strategy, valuation, underwriting, and due diligence support, through its alliances with firms such as Alvarez & Marsal, a leading global advisory firm.

CTO Edwin Liu and his team of talented engineers have created MREN's proprietary technology. The Metis team created a unique proprietary development method to maximize efficiency in the development of data, document and communication capabilities. This ability gives Metis the competitive advantage to continually improve and enhance the MREN platform expeditiously. MREN is expecting to attract approximately $500 million of opportunities from the private sector and $2 billion of development opportunities from the public sector shortly after the launch.

Instant Insights /

Principal-to-Principal CRE Platform Launched

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