BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., Dec. 12, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Navitas Capital, a venture capital fund focused on early-stage technology investments for the real estate and construction industries, closed its second fund with $60M in LP commitments.
Navitas' investment strategy is to provide a combination of growth capital, industry expertise, and market access to high growth technology companies in its primary focus areas: smart buildings, workflow solutions, artificial intelligence/machine learning, marketplaces, visualization, construction tech, and financial services. Investments in the firm's first fund included PlanGrid, a provider of construction management software, Matterport, the leading interactive 3D and VR technology for real estate, and View, an intelligent glass company. Early investments in Navitas' second fund include Truss, a listings and tenant rep marketplace for small commercial spaces, Aquicore, a provider of smart building and commercial energy management solutions, and Honest Buildings, a digital platform for managing capital improvements for commercial buildings.
"Navitas was the ideal partner to lead our Series A round. The partners' collective deep knowledge, experience and connections in our business gave us immediate strategic access to their industry network. Their track record and ability to align world class investor partners behind us was very attractive to our team as we begin to scale the business." – Andrew Bokor, Co-Founder, Truss
"Navitas is the leading VC in the smart building space and offers both unique access to square footage and guidance to help our company scale. As a first-time founder, it's great having a trusted investor at the table." – Logan Soya, CEO/Founder, Aquicore
As part of raising their second fund, Navitas welcomes new limited partner commitments from industry heavyweights including DivcoWest, JLL, Equity Residential, and Saint-Gobain, among others. Navitas works closely with its strategic LPs to help identify, underwrite, and co-invest in best-in-class technology start-ups impacting their businesses.
"As an early investor and adopter of real estate technology, DivcoWest has seen first-hand the opportunity to drive asset value and investment returns across our real estate funds. Partnering with Navitas is a core part of our strategy to increase capital allocation to real estate technology, broaden our access to world-class startups in the CRE tech space, and deploy the best digital solutions across our portfolio." – Stuart Shiff, CEO, DivcoWest
"The built world is in the early phases of a digital transformation, and JLL is committed to being a leading provider of digital service offerings. Having a venture capital partner with the experience and access of Navitas helps us uncover a broader set of innovation and build relationships with the most promising emerging companies in our sector." – Mihir Shah, Co-CEO, JLL Spark
Co-Founded by Travis Putnam and James Pettit, Navitas also welcomes Gary Dillabough as its third Managing Partner. Dillabough was previously at the Westly Group where he led the firm's smart buildings practice and co-invested with Navitas on a number of portfolio companies. Dillabough previously led investment in and currently sits on the board of Honest Buildings, Comfy, Lunera and View.
"Welcoming Gary to the team was the perfect next step given our track record of working together and complimentary skill sets. Gary brings a tremendous amount of operating experience across both high growth startups and real estate as well as a deep network in the space," adds Jim Pettit.
As the multi-trillion dollar real estate and construction industries accelerate their adoption of technology, the vision for Navitas is to be the partner of choice for best-in-class startups in the sector. With its new fund, the firm plans to make 8-10 core investments in the $3-5M range, along with a handful of smaller seed investments.
"The combination of a rapidly expanding universe of quality start-ups, increasing capital flows, and a massive industry actively seeking technology solutions is propelling the sector forward. Navitas has a front row seat to this dynamic – and that's extremely exciting," says Travis Putnam.
For more information about Navitas Capital, visit: www.navitascap.com
SOURCE Navitas Capital
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