We watched 5 early-stage startups blending tech and real estate demo their ideas after graduating from a high-profile proptech accelerator

MetaProp

Attendees at MetaProp Demo Day NYC

• MetaProp Accelerator's demo day showcased five startups that represent the expansive definition of proptech. MetaProp is one of the leading early-stage VCs and accelerators in proptech.
• These founders made up the class of MetaProp's seventh accelerator program, the fifth that the real estate tech-focused venture fund has hosted at New York's Columbia University.
• MetaProp's own numbers showed more than $10 billion in investment for proptech in 2019.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

In a midtown Manhattan Convene event space on Wednesday night, five startup founders pitched their products to a packed room of industry insiders.

These founders made up the class of MetaProp's seventh accelerator program, the fifth that the real estate tech-focused venture fund has hosted at New York's Columbia University.

The companies ranged from a subscription service for feminine products and toiletries in the workplace to a software that uses photographs and models to streamline the process of inspecting infrastructure like bridge. Their wide range of subject matter is a distillation of the wide-ranging and fluid definition of what exactly proptech, or real estate technology, really is.

The audience was made up of industry insiders, with potential investors, real estate brokers, entrepreneurs, engineers, and landlords mingling before and after the presentation. The gathering felt like a networking event and celebration of proptech, but the presence of potential investors and customers left open the possibility of dealmaking.

MetaProp, founded in 2015, is an early-stage proptech VC fund and accelerator. The accelerator provides each company with a minimum investment of $50,000 that can go up to $250,000.

Proptech had a banner year in 2019. CREtech, an advocacy and research group in the real estate tech industry, estimated that proptech startups received a total of $31.6 billion in funding in 2019.

During his opening remarks, Metaprop co-founder and partner Zach Aarons said that MetaProp's own tally, not yet finalized, showed more than $10 billion in the category. That number is up 20 times from 2015, the year MetaProp was founded. Aarons clarified that MetaProp tired to remove as much "prop" from their tally, only including true technology businesses.

While the biggest players dominate the headlines, entrepreneurs are continuing to enter the space. Aarons said that MetaProp is now looking at 40 companies a week, and tracks more than 9000 companies globally.

This class of five startups, some founded as long ago as 2012, others as recently as last year, are a small sampling of the excitement in the proptech world.