Sky high proptech valuations in US spur investors to look further afield

NYC Real Estate Tech Week: Investors told are beginning to swerve away from the US proptech market to score better deals amid sky-high proptech company valuations. Speaking at MIPIM Proptech New York, Concrete VC partner Taylor Wescoatt said finding a good investment deal in the US has become increasingly difficult, describing current valuations as being “bananas”. Wescoatt said Europe was a better place for investors to seek a good deal for investing in proptech companies.  “There is so much money here [in US] and the market is so big, there are so many funds competing for any hit deal that Valuations are bananas,” he said. He added that in Europe there are “lower valuations and there is less people competing for each deal which drives them [valuations] down[…] there’s good deals to be had”. Meanwhile, JLL Spark head of growth Americas Andrea Jang said that one of the most attractive areas to invest in was Canada. She said that there was “a lot of very good tech talent” in the country and that the government in Ontario and Quebec are funding the salaries of that pool of talent.  “It’s much cheaper to start a company in Canada than it is in the US, the valuations in Canada are significantly lower and you can benefit on the exchange rate of the US and Canadian dollar,” Jang said. Jang added that proptech companies in Canada can also be more easily deployed to Asia Pacific and Europe. Mitsui Fudosan executive manager Takeshi Kodoma said that Israel presented the best opportunities, especially in the cyber security space.