Fifth Wall expands into Europe with €140m fund

The world’s largest proptech VC firm has raised €140m for its European Real Estate Technology Fund as it looks to accelerate the region’s adoption of real estate innovation.

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The oversubscribed fund, which takes Fifth Wall’s capital under management to about $3bn, will target “high potential” European startups and offer co-investing opportunities alongside the firm’s core North American real estate tech funds.

Investors in the fund include some of the biggest names in European real estate, including SEGRO, PGIM Real Estate, Knight Frank, Ivanhoé Cambridge, Merlin Properties and BNP Paribas Real Estate.

Co-led by Roelof Opperman and Miguel Nigorra in London, the fund has already completed investments into several European startups, including Clikalia, the Spanish iBuyer startup, and Gorillas, an on-demand grocery delivery company.

Soumen Das, chief financial officer at SEGRO – which has invested in both the new European fund and in Fifth Wall’s Fund II in 2018 – said: “Fifth Wall’s leading platform and deep market knowledge has delivered valuable insights into the proptech market and emerging technologies.”

According to PitchBook data, the European proptech market represents approximately 20% of all global proptech activity in 2021, including €3.8 billion of venture capital investment in over 200 deals.

This was a 3.5 times higher than in 2020, with the median European proptech deal size growing from €1.6m in 2019 to €3.2m in 2021.

Brendan Wallace, co-founder and managing partner at Fifth Wall, said: “We are thrilled to expand our firm into Europe as we aim to replicate Fifth Wall’s position as the leading proptech investor in North America with this expansion into Europe and Israel.

“The success of Fifth Wall’s model is premised on identifying the leading proptech companies and accelerating their growth through Fifth Wall’s global network of more than 90 strategic investors.

“Having so many of the leading European real estate firms supporting our European fund will enable us to help accelerate the expansion of the proptech ecosystem in Europe and Israel.”

The news follows Fifth Wall’s announcement that it raised $1.1bn across its funds in 2021.