These 4 Newest Proptech Unicorns Show AI's Increasing Role In Commercial Real Estate

After years of dormancy, venture capital investment into technology companies that serve the real estate industry has soared back, but it is being funneled to a select few companies: those with artificial intelligence as part of their core business models. 

Venture capital firms invested $16.7B in proptech in 2025, a 67.9% year-over-year increase from 2024, according to the Center for Real Estate Technology & Innovation. And investment may be accelerating, as firms poured roughly $1.7B into the proptech sector in January 2026, a 176% increase from the level of investment in January 2025, CRETI reports. 

Investment in AI-centered proptech companies grew at an annualized rate of 42% in 2025, almost double non-AI companies' growth rate of 24%, according to PitchBook data.

"The reality is that the market no longer rewards technology that 'helps,'" CRETI Managing Director Ashkán Zandieh said in an email to Bisnow. "The next generation of unicorns in proptech will be AI-native companies that directly influence underwriting accuracy, rent collection, lease compliance, and construction cost control."

And the rapid increase in AI investment is creating winners and losers for funding in the proptech market, with investment concentrating into a smaller pool of companies, according to a CRETI report. Data from CRETI also finds that $11.2B of the capital flowing into proptech in 2025 was deployed into rounds of $100M or more, with 31 companies accounting for 72.3% of total capital invested.

“Capital formation was driven by a limited number of large transactions rather than broad-based deployment across the long tail of early-stage startups,” the report states.

Three new proptech unicorns — meaning startups with private valuations of more than $1B — have been minted since July. All of them offer AI solutions to automate different processes in the real estate business. Each seeks to automate processes in real estate with the promise of leading to a tangible reduction in labor hours. 

Limited partners in venture capital funds increasingly view the letters “A” and “I” as a seal of approval for investments, PitchBook Director of VC Research Kyle Stanford said. 

And those companies that don't have AI baked into the business models may face investors’ wrath. Commercial real estate stocks tumbled earlier this month due to investor concerns over AI disruption. Several brokerages and office REITs saw stocks plummet, including JLL, CBRE, BXP, Cousins Properties and SL Green.

"Money is going to continue to go to the AI-native companies," Stanford said. "For companies that aren't going to be able to become AI-native, they need to be able to use AI to make their businesses more efficient."

Here are the four proptech unicorns that have collectively raised almost $1B over the past year, and how they are using AI to reshape the CRE space:

EliseAI

Founded: 2017
Valuation: $2.2B
Latest Funding Round: $250M in August 2025
Key Backers: Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, Sapphire Ventures, Navitas Capital

EliseAI CEO Minna Song hatched the idea for her proptech company while working as an administrative assistant at a residential real estate firm, where she saw the inefficiencies in communication between property managers and tenants. 

EliseAI is an agentic AI that can manage correspondence and scheduling issues 24/7 to help multifamily landlords with the logistical work of rental tours, lease audits and maintenance. 

The company works with some of the largest apartment landlords in the country, including Greystar, AvalonBay Communities, Bozzuto, Brookfield and Equity Residential. Its technology is being used by over 600 owners to manage more than 5 million apartment units.

EliseAI raised $250M in Series E funding in August 2025, bringing its valuation to $2.2B. The company is now worth more than double what it was a year ago.

The new funding round allows the company to double its 300-person workforce within the next year, adding roles in its New York, San Francisco, Boston and Chicago offices. The capital will also be used to accelerate the growth of its AI platforms.

Bedrock Robotics

Founded: 2024
Valuation: $1.75B
Latest Funding Round: $270M in February 2026
Key Backers: CapitalG, Valor Atreides AI Fund, Tishman Speyer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, NVentures

Former executives from Waymo and data platform Segment created Bedrock Robotics to automate and streamline the construction industry. The company developed sensors to create self-driving construction and other worksite vehicles. 

Its flagship product, Bedrock Operator, utilizes AI to instantly and constantly calculate 3D mapping using measurements from laser pulses, satellite imagery and motion and speed sensors. The mapping and sensors allow equipped vehicles to travel in the physical world autonomously. 

The company says such automation won't replace human labor but instead augment it. With a growing shortage in the construction labor workforce, such automation could soften the demand for labor and help contractors finish projects at a quicker pace.

In February, Bedrock raised $270M in Series B funding.

The new funding will allow the company to advance and expand its reach, with the ultimate goal of creating fleets that are fully automated and tied to a single command system, according to Construction Dive.

Juniper Square

Founded: 2014
Valuation: $1.1B 
Latest Funding Round: $130M in June 2025
Key Backers: Ribbit Capital, Fifth Wall, Redpoint Ventures, HighSage Ventures, Blue Owl Capital

Like EliseAI's Song, Juniper Square cofounder Alex Robinson came from a real estate background. From his experience, he believed the private investment market sector needed a technological upgrade to operate more efficiently. 

Juniper Square began as an operating system software platform for capital calls, distributions, investor reporting and fund administration. In October 2025, the company rolled out an AI-powered CRM. This digital tool uses natural language processing, predictive modeling and pattern recognition to automatically extract and organize data from emails, documents and investor communications. 

The company counts Tishman Speyer, Greystar and Beacon Capital Partners as clients. It raised $130M in Series D funding in June, bringing its private valuation up to $1.1B.

Funds from this new capital investment round will go toward the company's JunieAI, an artificial intelligence platform catered toward private market general partners. The platform will use agentic AI to support investor relations work, fund administration, accounting and reporting, and portfolio management.

Vantaca

Founded: 2017
Valuation: $1.25B
Latest Funding Round: $300M in October 2025
Key Backers: Cove Hill Partners, JMI Equity

Like others on this list, the North Carolina-based company was founded by two veterans of the community association management sphere. The duo saw inefficiencies in association management and sought to use tech to streamline and improve HOA processes.

Vantaca originally provided a software platform to assist homeowners associations by digitizing and centralizing accounting, dues collection, financial reporting and resident communications on a single platform. 

In November 2024, the company acquired HOAi, a firm that provided AI tools to automate document management and streamline resident support. The HOAi tools, which were integrated into Vantaca’s platform, use natural language processing to analyze information in correspondence and documents for pertinent issues. The tools then use an agentic process to automatically create appointments or tasks based on the information analyzed. 

In October, the company raised $300M in minority growth investment, bringing its valuation to $1.25B. The new funding will allow the company to expand and further integrate its AI capabilities into the Vantaca platform.