Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators

Brandon Wright is the Co-founder and CEO of Tongo, the company he co-founded to help Real Estate agents address cash flow challenges by providing financial tools such as a commission line of credit and a payroll solution to help stabilize their incomes and automate savings. With a deep understanding of the challenges faced by agents and commission-based earners, Brandon has led Tongo in creating i...

Robert Cooper is the President and CEO of Embue. After two decades in high tech, Robert decided to follow his passion and use his experience to help solve the climate crisis and improve people's lives. He decided to focus on Multifamily after recognizing the huge opportunity to simultaneously reduce carbon emissions, improve residents' health and comfort, and make the buildings' staff’s work easie...

Caren Maio is the CEO and co-founder of 100, a Proptech company tackling rental fraud for Multifamily owners and operators. A staggering 93% of operators have experienced fraud in the last 12 months, and Caren and the 100 team are on a mission to stop it. Prior to this role, she led Moved, and co-founded and led Funnel (previously Nestio), a leasing and marketing platform for Multifamily propertie...

Dan Wenhold is an early stage investor in built world technology and Partner at Fifth Wall, where he co-leads the Real Estate Technology Investment team. Dan has led investments in innovative CRE tech companies like Fractional, Cottage and Neighbor.com. Prior to joining Fifth Wall, Dan was the first employee and Director of Retail at The Black Tux and a growth equity investor at Battery Ventures....

Taylor Hou is the CEO and Chief Happiness Officer at APM Help, a company serving over 300,000 single family homes nationwide dedicated to professionalizing the single family property management industry by bringing clarity and efficiency for accounting and operations. A serial entrepreneur and tech investor, Taylor is passionate about applying lean startup principles to create process efficiencies...

A Forbes 30 Under 30 entrepreneur, Eli Harris is the Co-Founder and Partner at One Dream Ventures, a venture studio developing cutting-edge enterprise SaaS and AI startups for the global energy transition in real estate and construction sectors. Previously, he co-founded R-Zero, backed by investors like Mayo Clinic and John Doerr, to revolutionize disinfection with hospital-grade, UV-C technology,...

Connie Lee is the Founder of Reffie, a centralized leasing platform designed to help Multifamily operators streamline their leasing processes and lease units faster. Reffie helps automate the 'boring', so real estate operators can focus on closing more renters. Before launching Reffie, she served as Strategy & Operations at Mosaic.tech and also managed Finance and Business Operations at ZipRec...

Brendan Wallace is CEO & CIO at Fifth Wall, where he guides the firm’s strategic vision. Fifth Wall is the largest venture capital firm focused on technologies for the global real estate industry, including those which decarbonize the sector. Wallace has described the impact of the real estate industry on the environment as "the single-biggest lever we can turn on to mitigate climate change.”...

Remen Okoruwa is a former strategy consultant and product manager, and now Co-founder and CEO at Propexo. His company helps property owners, operators, and proptech companies deliver better resident experiences through the power of data. Propexo provides tools for connecting property management software with other technology in a streamlined way. Propexo is a customer-centric organization that foc...

Bryce Nyberg is the VP, Corporate Development at Berkadia and the Head of BeEngaged. Bryce focuses on advancing innovation in our industry through BeEngaged, partnerships, investments, and acquisitions. His influence in and out of Berkadia, business acumen, and effective program leadership skills lead to remarkable outcomes for the organizations he works with. Startups that have gone through BeEng...

Michael Rudin joined Rudin in 2008 and, together with his sister Samantha, represents the fourth generation to work at the family business founded in 1925. Michael focuses on new developments, capital markets, commercial leasing, sustainability and technology. He also helps lead the family’s alternative investing business, Rudin Ventures, where they've invested in companies like Bilt, Jones, VTS a...

Salman Ahmad is the CEO and Co-founder of a16z-backed Mosaic, a construction technology company that builds software that makes homebuilding more scalable and efficient. Mosaic was founded in 2017 by Salman and Sep Kamvar, whom were two computer scientists working together at MIT and Stanford developing machine learning algorithms applied in the real world. Together, they developed a bold vision f...

Eoin Matthews is the Co-founder at Point, a home equity investment company making home equity wealth accessible to homeowners without creating a monthly debt obligation. Homeowners get upfront funds from Point in return for a portion of your home’s future appreciation. Point recently announced an oversubscribed $141M securitization, which marked it's second rated securitization and third overall,...

Lisa Rockefeller is the Chief Revenue Officer at Cortex Sustainability Intelligence, the decarbonization platform built for commercial real estate, where she's driving the go-to market strategy. Cortex's advanced AI helps CRE teams amplify operational effectiveness, make informed decisions about capital investments, and tactically address regulation risks. Lisa has spent over 15 years in the regul...

Alon is the Founder and General Partner of RE Angels, a real estate technology angel fund solely composed of real estate experts with deep and diverse industry expertise focused on early stage startups. Alon also owns and manages several multifamily portfolios throughout the southeast (FL, NC & VA). Alon was the co-founder and managing partner of DTI Holdings, a vertically-integrated private e...

Christelle Rohaut is the Founder and CEO of Codi (backed by a16z), where she's building the walk-to-work revolution. Codi offers turnkey, private office spaces with the most flexible terms on the market. In a matter of days, any company can find a space for their team, with full and part-time options, outsourced office management, and flexible leases. Codi has also created a Relief Fund to help bu...

Robert McDonald is the Managing Partner at Cherry Lawn Capital, on a mission to provide businesses with the real estate capital necessary to scale and the operational capital needed for a successful next venture round. Robert joins Edward, Jeff and Zach to also discuss lessons and takeaways from the previous Proptech boom cycle, and how should founders and investors think about structuring, financ...

Matt Ellis is the CEO of Measurabl, the world’s most widely adopted ESG solution for real estate. Customers use Measurabl to measure, manage, report, and act on ESG data on more than 15 billion square feet of commercial real estate across 92 countries. Measurabl empowers customers to optimize ESG performance, assess exposure to physical climate risk, drive decarbonization, and secure sustainable f...

Katharine Lau is the CEO and Co-founder of Stuf, a self storage startup delivering modern, tech-enabled storage to consumers and businesses. Stuf partners with real estate owners to monetize basements, garages, and other spaces in commercial buildings as storage, creating new cash flow opportunities for landlords while providing neighborhoods with a new amenity. Stuf was recognized by Fast Company...

Raunaq Singh is the founder & CEO of Roam, the platform for purchasing a home with an assumable, low-rate mortgage included. Prior to founding Roam, Raunaq spent a decade in various product and operations roles across Uber, Opendoor and Culdesac. He received a Bachelor's degree in Political Economy from NYU and currently resides in New York City. (2:26) - Lessons from Opendoor & Uber (5:01...

Ryan Simonetti is the CEO and co-founder of Convene, a global hospitality company that owns and manages premium Meeting, Event & Workplace locations around the world. His unique expertise in real estate acquisitions, development, and finance has helped catapult Convene to become a pioneer in the commercial real estate industry. Ryan is also the co-founder & Chairman of Ease Capital, a digi...

Ryan Frazier is the Co-founder and CEO at Arrived Homes, the Real Estate tech company that Jeff Bezos and Marc Benioff invested in to make the wealth building potential of owning rental homes & vacation rentals more accessible. Ryan and the Arrived team believe they can do that by simplifying the process, and lowering the cost to get started. With Arrived anyone can buy shares in income produc...

Nick Narodny is the Founder and CEO at Aalto, a real estate marketplace that lets people buy and sell homes online. Nick previously co-founded Grovo, a microlearning company for real estate agents that was acquired by Cornerstone on Demand. Real Estate runs in the family for Nick, after being raised and inspired by his real estate agent mother and father. Aalto combines modern technology with a ce...

Ben Miller is the co-founder and CEO of Fundrise, the largest direct-to-consumer alternative asset manager in the US. Under his leadership, Fundrise has grown to over 2 million active users and over $3 billion in real estate private equity, private credit, and growth-stage venture capital. Ben also serves as Chairman of the Board of three publicly-registered investment companies and, during his 25...

Eliot Brown is the co-author of The Cult of We (with Maureen Farrell), a WSJ best-selling book, and winner of the Financial Times, Fortune, and NPR Best Book of the Year Awards. Eliot covers startups and venture capital for The Wall Street Journal in London. He joined the Journal in 2010, when he was hired to cover commercial real estate in the wake of the financial crisis. He previously worked at...