Real Estate Venture Competition Launched by HBS and Graduate School of Design to Encourage the Convergence of Real Estate and Tech

Together, the seven of us (Faisal Almogren, Marcus Goodwin, Chris Lawlor, Kunal Lunawat, Lauren McClellan, Brynne Mcnulty and Anthony Stahl) from the business and design schools have started a pitch competition to fuel innovation with tech in real estate.

[stag_dropcap font_size=”50px” style=”normal”]A[/stag_dropcap]n antiquated asset class worth one trillion dollars by itself, real estate has been ripe for disruption for quite some time. However, real estate tech has not gained the same traction that other industries like fin tech or retail tech have over the past few years.

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Students from both Harvard Business School and Harvard’s Graduate School of Design have partnered together to establish the Real Estate Venture Competition (REVC).

But things are changing. As Jared Kushner, CEO of Kushner Companies, has said, “For too long, the real estate and tech industries were not communicating with each other, and that’s what’s really changed over the past few years.”

When the seven of us got together at the iLab – three students from HBSl and four students from the Graduate School of Design – we were convinced that the team needed to build something to highlight the important development that is this growing interaction between real estate and tech. And that’s how the Real Estate Venture Competition (REVC) was born.

[stag_dropcap font_size=”50px” style=”normal”]I[/stag_dropcap]n its first year, the REVC is a pitch competition for new companies with the potential to materially impact the real estate industry through business strategy and creative execution. So far, the organizing team has selected 25 startups that will pitch in front of an esteemed jury of nine real estate thought leaders and investors who will select a winner on March 29, 2015 at Harvard Business School.

We use our phones to hail cabs and order groceries but still have to mail a check to pay our rent. But there’s no reason for real estate to lag behind – and that’s where REVC comes in. Over the next few years, we envision this competition to be at the forefront of bringing the nation’s best real estate startups together to pitch their ideas and strengthen the real estate tech network, which in turn will significantly shape the nature of the industry.

Organizing Team Members of the Real Estate Venture Competition are: Faisal Almogren, Marcus Goodwin, Chris Lawlor, Kunal Lunawat, Lauren McClellan, Brynne Mcnulty and Anthony Stahl.

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