Real Estate Technology

Dear Clients and Friends,

Please find here our latest report on the values and m&a trends in the Real Estate Tech industry. We can’t predict the long-term impact of COVID-19 on real estate values (although suburban residential properties in many areas are clearly getting a short-term boost). However, we can note that values of publicly traded Real Estate technology firms have largely recovered from their pandemic-driven lows.

We see similar trends among privately held firms that have scale, proprietary technology and strong ARR growth in this crowded, and fragmented sector – as more firms see the need to adopt automation and digitization solutions.

As you will see in the report, the momentum towards use of technology has inevitably led to m&a transactions in the field. We expect this momentum to continue. A few recent examples:

• Black Knight’s acquisition of Optimal Blue – helps expand origination offerings and enhances comprehensive data & analytics capabilities
• ICE’s acquisition of Ellie Mae – allows for the creation of end-to-end electronic mortgage workflow solutions
• IPO of Rocket Companies – access to capital that helps efforts towards expanding market share
• CoStar Group’s acquisition of Ten-X – helps take market share in a crowded and growing market segment

The report that follows provides our sense of the trends across the Real Estate Technology vertical that are driving firms to continue pursuing m&a during a pandemic. It’s about building scale, adding products and technology, all in the service of helping clients improve operational efficiency, uncover critical insights, take advantage of crowdfunding opportunities, and comply with ever-changing regulations.

Please reach out to me (amerchant@marlinllc.com) with any questions or to discuss this in further detail.

Marlin & Associates is one of the most active investment banking and strategic advisory firms, providing trusted counsel to middle market companies worldwide that offer enterprise and vertical application software, services, data and analytics including firms across FinTech ecosystem (Real Estate Tech, Payments, BankTech, WealthTech, InsurTech, LegalTech, GRC, Capital Markets Tech, Digital Tech, Business Intelligence, and Market Intelligence). Over the course of 18+ years we have advised more than 200 companies in 27 countries.

Over the past 18 months we have advised on 18 successful m&a transactions involving fintech, data and analytic firms. When you are ready, we would be pleased to discuss how we may be able to advise your firm.

Kind regards,

Aalap