Okapi, a commercial real estate-focused artificial intelligence (AI) platform, today announced that it has raised $5.5 million in Series-A financing. The funding round was led by Marius Nacht, the co-founder and chairman of Check Point Software Technologies and a hi-tech entrepreneur, and brings the total amount of capital Okapi has raised to $8.4 million.
Founded by Iris Tsidon and Maya Gal, Okapi is a machine learning-powered software platform that analyzes disparate streams of property-related data to provide building professionals with predictive, targeted insights that improve tenant comfort and increase landlords’ income opportunities.
By analyzing a uniquely large array of building, financial and external data in real time, Okapi’s artificial intelligence tools identify anomalies and trends, gaining predictive insights into future property performance, including potential operational issues. The platform sends personalized push notifications to each user in a CRE organization with actionable suggestions specific to their job function. Within months of deployment, Okapi has consistently helped prominent property owners improve tenant experience, bolster leasing activity, flag opportunities for revenue generation and cut expenses.
“After beginning North American operations in 2017, we quickly gained traction with Canada’s largest landlords, helping to improve operations for their portfolios while increasing NOIs by 1-3 percent,” said Tsidon, Okapi’s CEO. “Just a few months after launching in the U.S., this funding round enables us to expand our team and increase our market penetration. We have found that there is incredible demand for artificial intelligence tools to analyze the vast troves of data that owners and operators are neglecting, and now we have the resources to add industry veterans to our staff and advisory board to help facilitate our expansion.”
Concurrent with the news of its Series A, Okapi also announced the appointment of Stuart Appley to the company’s advisory board. A managing director of global technology and innovation at CBRE, Appley has also held senior technology roles at other real estate firms, including Shorenstein Realty Services, and has served on RealComm’s advisory council for over a decade.
“Stuart is one of real estate’s preeminent technology executives, and his diverse knowledge base will prove immensely valuable to Okapi as we grow our platform and service offerings,” said Gal, Okapi’s chief revenue officer. “Today’s commercial buildings collect a wealth of data, but the vast majority of that information falls into what we term the ‘data abyss.’ When structured and analyzed, this data can provide property owners and operators with incredibly valuable insights that increase revenues, enhance tenant comfort and improve operations. Machine learning has the power to connect siloed streams of data, generating actionable, ‘big picture’ intelligence that can improve building operations in real time.”
In addition to identifying revenue-generating and expense-reducing opportunities, Okapi’s recommendations allow for more proactive communication with tenants, improving retention, optimizing leasing efficiency and drastically reducing marketing and tenant acquisition costs.
Because of the sizable dataset required for artificial intelligence to begin “learning” about property operations, Okapi works exclusively with portfolios comprising at least five million square feet of space. Currently focused primarily on office and multifamily portfolios, Okapi is used by some of the largest landlords in North America, including QuadReal Property Group, Bentall GreenOak and Oxford Properties.
About Okapi
Okapi is a SaaS platform powered by artificial intelligence that helps asset managers translate their existing data into actionable insights to increase net operating income portfolio-wide by 1-3 percent. The company’s machine-learning algorithms identify hidden opportunities to improve tenant comfort and increase income. The platform’s alert system sends every user in the CRE organization actionable, personalized notifications. Because of its user-friendliness and the power of its insights, Okapi’s technology has helped its clients win awards, including a RealComm Digie Award for Commercial Real Estate and a Pinnacle Award for Innovation from BOMA Toronto. For more information, visit http://www.okapi.ai.
