Wilshire Lane Capital, a property technology fund anchored by real estate manager Morgan Properties, has raised $40m for its debut fund.
Other limited partners included JPMorgan Asset Management and private equity firm Nile Capital.
Founded by Adam Demuyakor, a former venture capitalist at Fifth Wall and Andreessen Horowitz, Wilshire Lane was reportedly looking to raise up to another $85m for the early-stage fund by the end of this year, according to dot.LA.
Wilshire Lane is especially focused on companies with a “net-positive impact on the environment” and backing underrepresented founders – more than 80% of its portfolio companies have a founding or management team with at least one woman or underrepresented minority.
In February, Wilshire Lane invested a ‘multimillion-dollar’ amount in Jetty, the US-based developer of an alternative property rental finance system,
US-based property leasing platform developer Funnel Leasing’s $36.5m series B round and Everyrealm’s $60m A round.
Separately, UC Berkeley SkyDeck, a startup accelerator at University of California, along with Cariplo Factory, an innovation hub, and Lendlease, an Australia-listed real estate and investment group, have set up a European programme in Italy.
SkyDeck Europe will set up its program at the Milano Innovation District (MIND), after funding from Fondazione Cariplo and the government of the Lombardy region.
Caroline Winnett, SkyDeck’s executive director, said: “It is the best of both worlds as teams get the opportunity to learn from the programming available from our top accelerator, without necessarily committing to picking up and moving across the world.”
Andrea Ruckstuhl, head of continental Europe for Lendlease, added: “This is a fundamental piece in the MIND ecosystem. We will first launch the first venture capital fund that will be part of this ecosystem, involving national and foreign institutional capital.”
SkyDeck Europe applications are open now, with the Batch 14 program starting May 2, 2022.
