Lane, a Toronto-based Proptech company offering a communication platform for landlords and tenants, has raised $2.5 million in a Seed round led by real estate tech-focused firm Alate Partners.
Panache Ventures and the Colliers Proptech Accelerator (managed by Techstars), also participated in the round. The funding will be used to grow the startup’s team, and to help fuel its US expansion plans. Lane already has offices in Toronto, and with a New York office opened in April, it plans to open a third office in Los Angeles in the third quarter of 2019. The company is also gearing up for expansion into Boston, Chicago, DC, and Houston.
“This raise is an exciting one because not only are we backed by some of the best names in venture capital, but we have strategic investors from the industry that are also our clients. I think that really validates our product both as a great idea and also one that provides immense value to our clients,” Clint Robinson, Lane’s co-founder and CEO told BetaKit.
Robinson noted that Lane has been working to build out its backend to make it the “most impactful, useful platform for both property managers and users.”
Lane was founded in 2015 by Robinson and Kofi Gyekye, currently Lane’s chief product officer, as a workplace experience platform. The two started the company with the mission to streamline office space communications between landlords, property managers, companies, retailers, and vendors with “technology that’s easy to customize.” Its platform allows property owners to manage employee handbooks, tenant directories, guest registration, maintenance updates, and more. Building staff are also able to send communication bulletins to tenants.
Its modular technology integrates with existing buildings, giving staff the use of a technology-driven assistant. Since launching Lane claims that its technology has been able to increase engagement with tenants, office managers, and landlords by 20 times its previous amount. It stated that its customers have seen a 13-fold increase in reach when it comes to employee communication and interaction, with 2.2 times the ROI for offices because of improved productivity thanks to the platform.
The startup names among its partners real estate and asset management company Brookfield, global commercial real estate service Colliers International, Kipling Group, and Hullmark. Another major partner for Lane is Dream, one of Canada’s largest companies working in residential land development, housing and condominium development, and asset management, and management services.
Dream also backs Alate Partners, which launched in November with $40 million in seed funding, a brainchild of Relay Ventures managing partner John Albright and Michael J. Cooper, president and chief responsible officer of Dream. Focusing on real estate and proptech, Alate offers both direct investment and facilitates connections for companies to potential real estate partners.
“Lane plays a critical role in the operation of commercial buildings by providing landlords the ability to activate physical spaces through a tenant-facing platform,” said Jake Cassaday, board director at Alate Partners and partner at Relay Ventures. “With a robust backend, a partner-first mentality towards integrations, and a user experience that tenants love, Lane is becoming the central nervous system for some of the built world’s most prized assets. We are committed to supporting what we believe will become a global leader in the real estate technology ecosystem.”
This round marks Alate’s second investment in Lane, which also invested an undisclosed pre-seed amount in the company when the Alate was first launched. The recently announced $2.5 million includes both Alate’s pre-seed and current seed investment in Lane.
“It’s our goal to become the go-to platform that runs everyone’s workplace experience across the world, changing the way people interact with the places they work and the people they work with,” Robinson stated.
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Serving Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Waterloo, Ottawa and Halifax.
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