British Land is one of the latest organisations to back Fifth Wall’s Climate Technology Fund, which aims to invest in technologies that can reduce the carbon footprint of the real estate industry.
The London-listed real estate investment trust joins a growing roster of real estate investors and companies committing capital to the fund.
In November, New Zealand’s superannuation fund, NZ Super, invested in the fund, joining among others Equity Residential, Hudson Pacific Properties, Invitation Homes, Ivanhoé Cambridge, Kimco Realty Corporation and Cosan.
British Land has invested previously with proptech firm Fifth Wall and said its latest investment would allow it to collaborate with other global real estate and technology businesses and to integrate cutting-edge technologies across its portfolio.
David Walker, chief operating officer at British Land, said: “Sustainability is integral to our business and we have a clear strategy to deliver against our ambitious 2030 goal to make our whole portfolio net-zero carbon.
“As we continue to make progress, we know that new technologies will play an increasingly important role in both the development and operation of our places.
“This investment will help us grow our expertise in climate tech, gain exposure to innovative solutions that are directly applicable to our business and retain our industry-leading position on sustainability.
“As one of the first companies to work with Fifth Wall in the UK, we have found their insights, network and access to best-in-class technologies and products invaluable.”
This week, Fifth Wall said it raised more than $1.1bn (€974m) across its funds last year from new and existing investors.
New investors included Aldar, APG, Arbor Realty Trust, BNP Paribas Real Estate, Bpifrance, Camden Property Trust, Gestilar, Knight Frank, Meritage Homes, affiliates of Northwood Investors, PGIM Real Estate and The Durst Organization.
Existing investors that increased their commitments included CBRE, Canderel, Cushman & Wakefield, Granite Properties, Hines, Koch Real Estate Investments, Merlin Properties, Move, News Corp, PulteGroup and SEGRO.
Fifth Wall now has more than 90 limited partners (LPs).
“We’re in the Golden Age of proptech with enormous secular growth demonstrated by the record-breaking amount of capital being invested into proptech by LPs,” said Brendan Wallace, co-founder and managing partner at Fifth Wall.
“When we started Fifth Wall in 2016, proptech was a niche VC investment category; yet, real estate was and remains 13% of US GDP.
“It’s been exciting to witness how the real estate industry has embraced proptech deployments and we’re confident these forward-looking real estate players will bring this same mindset to assessing and adopting climate technologies.”
