About That Venture Funding Round That NKF Led

NEW YORK–Last month Newmark Knight Frank led a Series B funding round for technology provider Workframe that raised $9.5 million and included participation from the venture capital arm of real estate technology firm MetaProp, as well as Venrock, a renowned venture capital firm and repeat Workframe investor.

It was an interesting role for the broker, which gave little hint of whether this transaction augured future ones when asked by GlobeSt.com. “I can’t comment on activities that haven’t been announced or may be in the pipeline,” Joshua Gosin, a managing director at the firm’s Manhattan headquarters who specializes in tenant representation, told GlobeSt.com. Generally speaking, he added, “we are taking an active initiative in terms of technology investments.

Barry Gosin, Newmark Knight Frank’s CEO, alluded to the same in a prepared statement about the Workframe transaction. “We’re always seeking compelling technology solutions that can enhance our productivity and efficiency…” he said.

NKF already has a technology offering for its clients, which among other things provides data analysis. It plans to roll out Workframe across its service lines nationwide.

About Workframe

Workframe is a workflow optimization application, according to Robert Moore, one of the company’s founders, which is targeted primarily at tenants for now. It is meant to help manage capital projects and facilitate communication among the team and service providers with such functionality as process management, document management and task management. “We think the application can be used by different stakeholders in the CRE space,” Moore said. Some of the proceeds from the funding round will be used to build out features that would better service brokers and landlords. “It’s all the same process,” Moore explained. “It begins when a tenant is looking at space, and so a Newmark broker, in conjunction with a client, is able to leverage the core features in the same way that one of our tenant customers would when they’re designing and building out space.”

Brokers Want To Stay On Top Of Technology

Brokers are getting into this space in one form or another. In April, for example, Colliers International announced that it tapped Ben Liao to be managing director of the Colliers Proptech Accelerator, a program jointly offered with worldwide entrepreneurial network Techstars. It is a new role for the program, which identifies and mentors real estate and property startups around the globe. “This partnership [with Techstars] highlights our commitment to providing the most innovative and cutting-edge technology solutions to help our professionals become more effective, and to help our clients accelerate their success,” Dylan Taylor, president & COO of Colliers International, said in a prepared statement.

Such initiatives are rounding out the funding offered by the venture capital community. Just to name one example, Real Estate Technology Ventures, an early-stage real estate technology venture firm that is backed primarily by large owners of multifamily and single-family rental properties, just led a $1.5 million seed round for SmartRent.com, a provider of IoT-based enterprise smart home automation technology for property managers.

Some companies like Workframe, though, prefer to work with a strategic investor such as NKf. When looking at the traditional investors, Moore says, “we found that there’s not as much knowledge about commercial real estate and the nuances that apply in our industry.”

“I think you’ll find that, among companies like ours, there’s a real appetite for strategic money ahead of financial money.”