Fifth Wall announced the close of $1.5B of new funds in 2022, including a $866M Real Estate Tech Fund III, €140M European Fund and $500M Climate Fund. Since 2016, Fifth Wall has raised the third-most capital of any venture firm globally ($2.9B), according to SEC Form D filings. Separately, a Fifth Wall affiliate raised $620M between two SPACs, including FWAA, which completed a merger with the Fifth Wall portfolio company SmartRent in 2021, and FWAC, which announced a merger with Mobile Infrastructure Corporation in 2022. In addition, Fifth Wall grew its team to 75 investment professionals across five offices in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, and recently opened Singapore office.
Fifth Wall is the largest and most active investor in real estate tech (or “PropTech”). Today, the firm’s funds represent 64% of capital raised for dedicated PropTech funds. In addition to its PropTech funds, Fifth Wall recently started investing in Climate Tech to decarbonize the global real estate industry, raising $740M across early-stage and growth stage funds. Separately, the firm launched its climate infrastructure strategy led by Alok Sindher. Fifth Wall is also today’s largest VC fund that is a certified B Corp.
Since the launch of its first $212M fund in May 2017, Fifth Wall has benefited from the explosive growth of PropTech and Climate Tech, which each now represent some of the largest venture capital categories. The firm became an early investor in many successful PropTech companies including Aurora Solar, VTS, and Lessen which recently acquired SMS Assist in the largest PropTech M&A transaction in history. In addition, Fifth Wall has invested in six companies that have gone public such as Procore—which recently became an investor in the firm’s Real Estate Tech Fund III—Opendoor, Blend, Doma, Hippo, and SmartRent—which completed a merger with Fifth Wall-sponsored FWAA in 2021. Nine of the Firm’s portfolio companies became unicorns in 2022, including Bilt, Cargomatic, ICON, Material Bank, ONE, SOURCE, Turntide Technologies, Veev, and VTS, totaling more than 25 portfolio companies that have become unicorns since Fifth Wall’s inception.
Founded in North America, Fifth Wall has rapidly expanded internationally with its European Fund, London and Singapore offices, and more than 110 strategic Limited Partners who represent some of today’s largest real estate owners from 15 different countries such as DAMAC (United Arab Emirates), British Land (United Kingdom), MERLIN Properties (Spain), MITSUBISHI ESTATE CO., LTD. (Japan) and NZ Super Fund (New Zealand), among many others. Fifth Wall boasts strategic Limited Partners from each major asset class across the real estate value chain, including Industrial (Prologis), Retail (Macerich), Multifamily (Camden Property Trust), Single Family (Invitation Homes), Homebuilding (Lennar), Healthcare (Physicians Realty Trust), Hotels (Hilton), Services (CBRE), and Listings (News Corp / Move, Inc.), among others.
“Fifth Wall was fortunate to be one of the first venture funds to identify the secular collision between the two largest industries in the U.S., real estate and technology. Because of our consistent track record of investing in category-leading businesses at this intersection, we have been able to meaningfully participate in fiscal as well as strategic value that has been created in what we today call PropTech,” shared Brendan Wallace, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Fifth Wall. “Our position at the driver’s seat in part comes from pioneering a unique model of boasting the largest real estate organizations in the world as our Limited Partners, because they are the biggest customers and end-users of the companies that we are investing in.”
Fifth Wall’s Inception
Fifth Wall was founded by Wallace and Brad Greiwe in a Philz Coffee shop in Santa Monica, when they were in their early 30’s. A graduate of Princeton, Wallace began his career with Goldman Sachs’ and Blackstone’s real estate groups before going on to found two successful companies out of Stanford Business School, including one that was sold to Workday. Similarly, Greiwe, a Harvard graduate, started his career in investment banking at UBS and private equity with Tishman Speyer as well as Starwood Capital Group, before co-founding and serving as CTO for Invitation Homes, the largest owner of single family homes within the United States and now an investor in Fifth Wall’s PropTech and Climate Tech funds.
Fifth Wall was founded on an unproven idea, as no institutional-scale funds existed in PropTech and no funds had attracted real estate corporates as Limited Partners in 2016. After closing its first $75M that grew to $212M, the firm gained momentum, investing in many startups that have since become synonymous with PropTech such as Blend, Doma, Hippo, Lessen, Opendoor, and VTS. Its investments in 2016 to 2018 have already returned a net amount of more than $493M to-date to investors.
In turn, Fifth Wall became synonymous with PropTech and is sought out by leading entrepreneurs and venture capital funds to help accelerate their businesses through the Firm’s distribution lanes which grew from seven to more than 110 Limited Partners in seven years across every major subsector of the real estate industry. The firm followed up its $212M Fund I with its $503M Fund II and $866 Fund III, each of which were the largest PropTech funds at the time they closed.
Fifth Wall earned the reputation as a firm that can accelerate its portfolio companies through partnerships with its strategic Limited Partner base, among the Firm’s most notable partnerships is Opendoor & Lennar.
“What makes Fifth Wall’s model so powerful is that it delivers specific, differentiated value through its unmatched network of real estate relationships with many of the most influential firms in North America and globally,” stated Max Simkoff, Founder & CEO of Doma, a Fifth Wall portfolio company that acquired North American Title—a subsidiary of Fifth Wall Limited Partner, Lennar—in 2019.
In addition to its numerous funds, Fifth Wall IPO’ed $620M across two SPACs, “FWAA” and “FWAC.” FWAA merged with the Firm’s portfolio company SmartRent, which included a $150M PIPE from Fifth Wall’s Limited Partners and SmartRent’s customers including Lennar. FWAC, recently announced its merger with Mobile Infrastructure Corporation.
Fifth Wall leveraged its leadership position in PropTech to build its Climate business, which emerged as the largest investor in tech to decarbonize the built environment, raising $740M. The Firm has invested in pioneering Climate Tech businesses such as Ascend Elements, Electric Hydrogen, RoadRunner, Runwise, SPAN, and Sealed, as well as announced Alok Sindher as a Partner to expand into infrastructure investing.
About Fifth Wall
Founded in 2016, Fifth Wall, a Certified B Corporation, is the largest venture capital firm focused on technology for the global real estate industry. With approximately $3.2B in commitments and capital under management, Fifth Wall connects many of the world’s largest owners and operators of real estate with the entrepreneurs who are redefining the future of the Built World. Fifth Wall is backed by a global mix of more than 110 strategic Limited Partners from more than 15 countries, including BNP Paribas Real Estate, British Land, CBRE, Cushman & Wakefield, Hilton, Hines, Host Hotels & Resorts, Ivanhoé Cambridge, Kimco Realty Corporation, Lennar, Lowe’s Home Improvement, Marriott International, MetLife Investment Management, MGM Resorts, Starwood Capital, Toll Brothers, and others. Fifth Wall believes this consortium represents one of the largest groups of potential partners in the global Built World ecosystem, which can result in transformational investments and collaborations with promising portfolio companies as well as decarbonization technologies. For more info about Fifth Wall, its Limited Partners, and portfolio, visit www.fifthwall.com.
