Era Ventures, a VC firm focused on investing in a broad range of business model innovations to catalyze positive change in the built world, announced the launch of its inaugural $88 million fund. And Era Ventures will deploy capital across multiple stages and a wide range of sector-focused innovations, from enablement technologies that improve existing processes to truly disruptive platforms that reshape the industry.
Launched by industry veteran Clelia Warburg Peters, Era Ventures has already garnered support from a broad roster of leading institutional investors, including one of the country’s leading Ivy League Endowments, ICG Advisors, New York Presbyterian Hospital, The Ashforth Company, BentallGreenOak (BGO), Continental General Insurance Company (CGIC), Pelwood Holdings, First American, Bain Capital Ventures, Fenwick & West LLP and others. It marks a notable achievement during a year when very few new venture funds of this size were raised.
Clelia Warburg Peters (founder and Managing Partner at Era Ventures) has been a leading investor in the PropTech space since its early days — first as a co-founder of MetaProp, one of the original, strategically backed PropTech funds, and then as a Venture Partner at Bain Capital Ventures, a leading generalist venture firm. She is an authority on innovation in the real estate category and is the first woman to raise an initial fund of this size.
Fund I has already backed founders across multiple stages:
Honey Homes – A digital handyman subscription service provider.
Latii – A cross-border construction-materials marketplace.
Welcome Homes – A platform to manage and build custom homes online.
Ostrich – A next-generation real estate listing service in the UK.
Shepherd – An embedded insurance platform designed for the construction industry.
Truehold – A single-family rental company that combines home sales and rental leases.
Homeward – An embedded financial platform powering residential real estate transactions.
PassiveLogic – An AI-enabled platform for autonomous buildings.
ViaBot – A Robotics-as-a-Service facility management platform.
Indigo – An AI-powered platform to facilitate residential real estate transactions.
KEY QUOTES:
“We are proud to have invested in and to support Era Ventures in its mission to drive transformational change in the real estate sector. We’ve seen specialist venture funds consistently outperform in similarly complex sectors like financial services and healthcare, and Era’s approach positions it to drive fundamental disruption in a massive, yet technologically lagging, industry.”
-Jeff Assaf, Chief Investment Officer at ICG Advisors, one of the leading multifamily offices in the country
“I’ve seen firsthand the need for a new approach to physical world innovation that combines the creativity and quality of the generalist investing approach with the sector knowledge and relationships brought by specialist funds. Era Ventures is leveraging our unique blend of institutional backing, top-tier venture experience, and deep real estate expertise to bring both rigor and care to driving transformational change in the physical world.”
-Clelia Warburg Peters, founder and Managing Partner at Era Ventures
“Era is not about playing it safe — we’re not just looking to digitize old processes in real estate and construction. As innovation in our built world enters a new generation, we believe founders and startups will learn from their predecessors’ mistakes, bringing more transformational, efficient, and profitable businesses to market.”
-Raja Ghawi, Partner at Era Ventures
“Clelia and Raja have a deep and considered viewpoint on what makes companies great. They use a qualitative and quantitative approach to understand their portfolio companies and apply that to provide helpful guidance and advice. In particular, I’ve appreciated how they have helped Honey Homes better understand our target customers and informed our pricing strategy. Just as important, they have shown themselves to be a steady partner amidst the ups and downs of a startup journey.”
-Vishwas Prabhakara, the Founder and CEO of Honey Homes
