For companies with several commercial leases, lease administration and management becomes a task that needs to be addressed and this duty typically touches on several departments within an organization. Traditionally, there hasn’t been a single unified approach for handling reporting, document management, internal/external coordination, and the other administrative tasks required that are required in order to gain a handle on the day-to-day post-lease singing responsibilities. Occupier is a collaborative lease management platform for brokers, commercial tenants, and other stakeholders to centralize all facets of lease administration, transaction management, and associated accounting impact. There have been a number of new accounting standards that affect requirements on the reporting of all leased assets as real estate represents the second-largest expense for most organizations. Even with growing interest in remote work, the need for centralized solutions is critical as Occupier is able to provide tenants with an unprecedented data-driven view of their real estate footprint to understand risk and opportunity.
AlleyWatch caught up with Occupier Cofounder Matt Giffune to learn more about how the founding team’s previous experience in CRE and at VTS gave them a bird’s eye view on the problem they are solving, the company’s traction since we spoke after their seed round last year, the company’s strategic expansion plans, latest round of funding, which brings the total funding raised to $16.9M and much, much more…
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
We raised $10.5 million in our Series A fundraising round. The round was co-led by OMERS Ventures and Stage 2 Capital with participation by seed stage investors Alate Partners, Second Century Ventures, and Metaprop.
Tell us about the product or service that Occupier offers.
At Occupier, we create software for commercial tenants and their brokers to help with lease administration, lease accounting, and transaction management. Our knowledge of new lease accounting standards, such as FASB’s ASC 842 and IFRS 16, will help ensure that businesses remain compliant. Occupier also allows real estate teams to centralize their commercial real estate strategy to focus on core components to provide data to make more informed decisions. Our platform helps improve alignment between teams so that everyone knows who needs to do what and when — ultimately leading to greater efficiency and business success.
What inspired the start of Occupier?
My cofounders, Andrew Flint and Erik Pearson, and I worked together at VTS. As an industry leader in the CRE space, we gained hands-on experience selling to Landlords. While there, we discovered a gap in the tech stack enabling tenants to manage their real estate portfolio. There were tons of tools for landlords but virtually nothing for tenants. That planted the seed of building a lease management solution specifically for tenants and their brokers.
How is Occupier different?
Occupier provides commercial real estate professionals with a platform that helps engage all stakeholders inside and outside the business, allowing them to automate the entire lease life cycle’s decision-making process, including planning, site selection and negotiation, lease management, and compliance with lease accounting standards. We can engage every business stakeholder that touches a company’s real estate data in a single pane of glass by centralizing the entire lease workflow.
What market does Occupier target and how big is it?
Our lease management solution enables real estate teams, finance professionals, and tenant-rep brokers in office, retail, restaurants, warehouses, healthcare, etc., to collaborate on the entire lease lifecycle. We support lease portfolios ranging from 10 to 500+ leases.
What’s your business model?
Our business model for tenants is an annual subscription based on the number of lease locations with ongoing services provided. Tenant representation brokers can also sign up for an annual subscription based on a per-seat model.
What are your post-COVID office plans??
We have an Industrious office in downtown Manhattan as well as a WeWork office in Boston. Over the past year, we’ve hired 15+ folks who are either in Boston, New York, or distributed across the country and Central America. As our team continues to grow, we will lean into the distributed model to attract a diverse talent pool.
What was the funding process like?
We were not planning to raise our Series A until Q1 of this year, but prior relationships with investors that were scouting our space led to pre-emptive discussions. We have been experiencing rapid revenue growth, and our product is beloved by our customers, so it was easy for investors to see how we could scale. Rather than setting off on a fundraising roadshow, we decided to dig in with Stage2 and OMERS Ventures because of their teams and expertise in helping portfolio companies.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
You have to have tough skin when raising capital. It is an arduous journey of “no’s” with investors criticizing every detail of your product and business model. While this comes with the territory, the most difficult part is finding investors who share your vision and have specific ways in which they can help you scale.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
The legacy technologies of the early aughts have not kept up with the ever-evolving CRE landscape. According to Michelle Killoran of OMERS Ventures, Occupier was attractive because our technology is built to connect all stakeholders from the tenant to the broker and everyone in between. Whereas many other CRE technologies create siloed workflows and are even a threat to the tenant-rep broker. Our unique approach to engaging all stakeholders combined with the current state of commercial real estate due to the pandemic were key factors in our fundraising success.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
We plan to double our team by hiring more engineering, product, sales, customer success, and marketing professionals. Our new funding will also help add features like payment processing, third-party integrations, and data customization.
What advice can you offer companies in New York that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
Starting a company is the ultimate rollercoaster ride. You celebrate the wins and mourn the losses, all while building what you believe to be an industry game-changer. My advice is to build with conviction, find your product-market fit and talk with as many customers, influencers, and prospects as possible. Your customers are the ultimate product designers and engineers as they know and feel the use case for your tool. If you nail those steps, then the capital will come.
Starting a company is the ultimate rollercoaster ride. You celebrate the wins and mourn the losses, all while building what you believe to be an industry game-changer. My advice is to build with conviction, find your product-market fit and talk with as many customers, influencers, and prospects as possible. Your customers are the ultimate product designers and engineers as they know and feel the use case for your tool. If you nail those steps, then the capital will come.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
Our vision is to break the silos between real estate, facilities, finance, and broker teams so that all stakeholders can operate within a single source of truth on the entire lease lifecycle. As our product matures, we look to add data integrations, payment processing, and deepening reporting capabilities.
What’s your favorite outdoor dining restaurant in NYC?
Any taco truck that is serving 24/7.
