A family friend who runs a REIT showed us their cap table management system back in 2016. It was a Windows 95 application. Not retro – actual Windows 95. Billions in real estate, managed through technology older than some of our employees.
This wasn’t just one firm’s problem. Across the industry, we kept seeing the same pattern: sophisticated real estate operations running on decades-old technology. Their efficiency was being bottlenecked by clunky systems and unnecessary complexity, and this ultimately led to the inception of InvestNext.
We started by asking why. Why were sophisticated investment firms still struggling with basic operations? Why was the industry accepting manual processes as the norm? Most importantly, why wasn’t anyone building technology that actually solved these problems?
Fund managers were trying to manage millions through email threads and spreadsheets. Teams spent entire days on distributions that should have taken hours. The solutions had to work in the real world, not just look good in a pitch deck.
Once we built the first working version of InvestNext, we realized that prioritizing innovation and solving these complex problems for real estate investment professionals was a winning long-term play.
Our Heart For Innovation
InvestNext is a product-first platform. The bulk of our energy and resources go into building things instead of talking about them. It’s not that we aren’t proud of what we’ve built or don’t think it’s worth shouting about. But we feel an immense responsibility to our clients to deliver on our commitments – and that includes adding new value for clients on our platform post-contract signing.
While we’re proud to have been first to market with innovations that are now considered table stakes – like inbound ACH funding – we know we have to hold “now” in one hand and “future” in the other. We have a massive vision for our platform’s future, but we won’t sell something we haven’t built yet.
There are many ways to run a business. Here’s ours:
- We balance recognized needs with emerging challenges
- We invest in solutions, not promises
- We strive to be the best fit, not just the best
- We build for what’s coming, not just what is
Where We Are Today:
While I’m proud of the milestones we’ve achieved, the real story is what the platform is doing for our clients. Over the last several years of using the InvestNext platform, they have been able to:
- Process over $1B in ACH distributions
- Grow their investor bases by many multiples
- Cut distribution processes from days to hours
- Reduce investor onboarding time from weeks to minutes
- Delight their investors
These innovations mean real estate firms can finally focus on growth instead of administration. Fund managers who used to spend 70% of their time on investor management now spend 70% on finding new opportunities. Teams that could handle 200 investors can now manage 2,000 without adding headcount.
These transformations matter because they demonstrate real impact. In SaaS, everyone talks about retention. The industry average hovers around 85%, with even top performers typically reaching about 87%. Only 11-19% of companies ever achieve rates above 85%.
| Performance Metric | Industry Average | Top Performers | InvestNext |
| Customer Retention | 85% | 93% | 96.3% Retention is >99% for Accounts with $10M+ FUM |
| Monthly Churn | 3-8% | <2% | 1.7% |
| Companies Achieving | 81-89% | 11-19% | Top 5% |
Our 96.3% customer retention rate isn’t just a number that exceeds the highest industry benchmarks – it reflects something more fundamental about how we approach building technology and partnerships.
This level of retention happens when you prioritize finding the right fit over closing the next contract. We openly tell firms if there might be better solutions for their needs, because we know that trying to be everything to everyone means being nothing worthwhile to anyone.
Looking To Tomorrow
The industry keeps evolving, and so do the challenges. Earlier this week, we launched integrated KYC/AML verification across our platform.
This was not just a launch to create a new feature; rather, it empowered our clients to adapt to regulatory changes head-on.
We’ve been watching the relationship between fraud and tightening regulatory requirements, and we believe KYC will become the new normal for real estate investment.
Over $4.6 billion was lost to fraudulent investments in 2023 alone, more than any other category according to the FTC. Real estate isn’t immune to bad actors.
This isn’t just about compliance – it’s about protecting our entire ecosystem. Good for GPs, better for LPs, and essential for the future of real estate investment.
The real estate investment landscape is changing rapidly. Regulators are tightening oversight. Investors expect more transparency. Fund managers need to move faster while maintaining compliance. This isn’t just about preventing fraud – it’s about setting new standards for how capital moves in real estate.
These industry shifts have pushed us to continue innovating, and the results speak for themselves:
- Fund managers closing raises in hours instead of weeks
- Real estate firms scaling their investor bases without scaling headcount
- Billions in distributions calculated and sent seamlessly
Looking ahead, we’re focused on building the infrastructure needed to navigate an increasingly complex regulatory landscape while making real estate investment more efficient and accessible.
The challenges are evolving – from manual processes to fraud prevention – but our approach hasn’t changed.
Identify real problems. Build actual solutions. Measure what matters.
The real estate technology space looks nothing like it did when we launched, but our job is to keep innovating and delivering impactful solutions for our customers, their investors, and their communities.
