WealthPark’s latest funding comes from a motley mix of institutional investors, angel investors, and family offices
Tokyo-based asset management proptech platform WealthPark has secured JPY 907 million (US$8.5 million) in a Series B round of financing from a consortium of investors, the company announced in a statement today.
The investment was raised from existing investors, SBI Holding’s asset management affiliate SBI Investment (from its AI and Blockchain Fund), and Mizuho Bank’s venture capital arm Mizuho Capital (from its Growth Fund No. 3), joined by new backers Aozora Bank, and Japan Finance Corporation, the statement said.
Other domestic and foreign angel investors and family offices who participated in the round include Investment Advisor, Tinshed Asia, Marcus Everard, Board Member at Hong Kong Venture Capital and Private Equity Association, Varun Bery, and Senior Principal and Asia-Pacific CEO of StormHarbour Securities, Water Cheung, the statement noted.
The company had last raised JPY 540 million (US$5 million) in a Series A round in 2018 from SBI Investment, Mizuho Capital, and Japan Post Capital, with SBI Investment acting as the lead investor. With the latest investment, the company’s total capital stands at JPY 1.898 billion (US$17.7 million).
The funds will be used to “accelerate the next stage of growth”, while the company will continue its focus on hiring for engineering roles, and bolstering operational capabilities, according to the statement.
“Through the proceeds from this round, WealthPark’s strategy is to strengthen the foundations of the platform… which were still in the planning stage in the previous round,” Mizuho Capital said.
WealthPark is a digital real estate wealth management platform for owners, managers and investors. The platform has over 70 real estate management companies (including overseas companies) and 10,000 real estate investors on board as of July 2020, while its user base has been steadily increasing from its last financing round, the statement noted.
The statement noted that WealthPark has entered into several corporate partnerships this year. It partnered with DocuSign in July this year to enable the digitization of real estate contracts.
It also announced a partnership with Sumishin SBI Net Bank, a joint venture Internet bank by SBI Holdings and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank, to bring its application program interface to the WealthPark platform.
Earlier this year, WealthPark also announced a partnership with Swiss artificial intelligence based-real estate data insights company PriceHubble AG in January, building on the two companies’ real estate services.
“We will continue working with property managers, developers, brokers, and financial institutions to help real estate, an illiquid asset class, be accessible in a low cost, convenient, and enjoyable way,” CEO of WealthPark Ryuta Kawada said in the statement.
“Digitalizing illiquid assets such as real estate is an arduous and time-consuming task. However, WealthPark will follow our vision of ‘helping investors achieve maximum returns’ and continuously work hard on expanding our products, services, and customer communication,” he added.
The application of technology, marking the start of the proptech industry, goes as far back as the early 2000s, with the digitization of information following the Internet boom.
In the Asia Pacific region, proptech startups brought in over US$1 billion in funding in 2018, although this saw a drop of 38.4% in the following year, even though interest in the Asia Pacific proptech landscape remained strong.
Globally too, proptech companies raised a record $24.9 billion in 2020, a surge of 157% from the previous year. Fully digitized real estate sales and tokenization are expected to be a major trends in the coming years.
