BLUEPRINT 2021

The Propcast

In this episode The Propcast talks to Vik Venkatraman, founder of Blueprint, real estate’s premier event for tech startups, VCs, and industry players to connect. Blueprint is hosting an in-person live event this autumn in Las Vegas! They are joined on the podcast by Matthew Boras, from RXR Realty and Nima Wedlake, from Thomvest, both of whom are speakers at the Blueprint 2021 to find out what to expect from Blueprint 2021, who is attending, and some top tips for PropTech pitching to investors. Get your ticket for Blueprint here!

Key Insights From This Episode

• (Blueprint ‘21) is going to be a gathering not to miss - Vik Venkatraman
• We are bringing together what we believe is the very best, the very brightest, the most active, the most prolific collection of folks who are on the technology side, the investor side, and the industry side of real estate – Vik Venkatraman
• We are focused on and excited to meet entrepreneurs that are building companies which ultimately serve as the backbone of the industry – Matt Boras
• This has been a very interesting time for the built environment, but we have also seen a lot of amazing advancement, adoption, and strength from the technology community – Vik Venkatraman
• At events like this, the density of connections you can make is really valuable – Nima Wedlake
• We are excited about the opportunity that tech is unlocking across all aspects of the industry – Matt Boras
• There's always stuff to learn and that's one of the pleasures of this role is that I get to learn from talented entrepreneurs on a daily basis – Nima Wedlake
• One-to-one networking is a really important part of Blueprint – Vik Venkatraman
• My recommendation for folks is, be proactive about reaching out and making connections – Nima Wedlake
• Knowing your metrics as a founder and knowing where to invest your resources as a company in order to achieve your goals for growth is pretty important (when pitching) – Matt Boras
• There's no replacement for tenacity. I think in this game, just sticking with it can take you a really long way – Vik Venkatraman
• By almost any metric there's never been a better time to be an entrepreneur – Matt Boras

About Our Guests

Vik Venkatraman

https://www.linkedin.com/in/vikvenkat/

Vik is a strategy and innovation management consultant, and a seasoned general manager. He currently serves as the general manager for Blueprint - the preeminent platform at the intersection of tech, venture, and real estate. At Bionic, he worked with a team of serial entrepreneurs to create and go after huge opportunities with F500 c-suites. He has lead multiple teams through the deployment of dozens of ecommerce sites, built multiple B2B sales & outreach machines, designed 2 hardware IOT products, and evaluated models ranging from SaaS to Marketplace. Vik has played a key role in building the $50MM Business Insights unit at American Express, and engineered the savings or growth of over $50MM in value for clients at Deloitte Consulting. Additionally, he built a beverage company, Star Power, to a business with over 500 accounts on no outside financing, and even published a book, Inspired! (Wiley, 2008). He graduated with honors from Columbia University with a degree in Biomedical Engineering.

Nima Wedlake

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nimawedlake/

Nima Wedlake is a Principal at Thomvest Ventures, focusing on investment opportunities across the real estate & financial technology verticals. He currently serves as a Board Observer at LoanSnap, a mortgage technology company, Wholesail, a B2B payments network, and Singular, a marketing attribution provider. He also spearheaded Thomvest’s investments in Ribbon, Tala, Blend, Mynd, Obie and PeerStreet. Nima was previously a Board Observer at Vungle (acquired by Blackstone in 2019) and DataXu (acquired by Roku in 2019). In 2020, Nima was recognized as one of 25 Rising Stars of Fintech VC by Business Insider. Prior to joining Thomvest, Nima worked as a management consultant advising technology clients on issues related to go-to-market strategy with the firm ZS Associates. He was also on the founding team at Sponge, a venture-backed customer engagement platform, where he led product development efforts. Nima is originally from the Bay Area and graduated from UC Berkeley, where he studied Business Administration and Operations Research.

Matt Boras

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattboras/

Matt serves as Senior Vice President on the Investment team at RXR Realty and leads the RXR digital ventures investment strategy. RXR offers a dynamic array of innovative investment products across the risk spectrum for its investors. Coupled with a rich history of office and industrial development, our funds benefit from our strategic increase in the construction of residential, storage, telehealth and transportation facilities across the US. Prior to this Matt was Vice President a Colony Capital, VP at NorthStar Asset Management Group, and Associate at Five Mile Capital.

About Our Host

Louisa Dickins

https://www.linkedin.com/in/louisa-dickins-ab065392/?originalSubdomain=uk

Louisa started her career in property working at a well-known estate agency in London. Realising her people skills, she moved over to Lloyd May to pursue a career in recruitment. She now is a Director at LMRE, who are a specialist recruitment firm driven by PropTech and recruitment professionals, and Louisa oversees their 5 core areas. Louisa co-founded LMRE and provides a constructive recruitment platform to the new disruptors in real estate. Louisa is also on the board of Directors at UK PropTech Association (UKPA).

About LMRE

www.lmre.tech

LMRE believe there is a better way to recruit. LMRE focus on a more comprehensive, client led focus delivering exceptional talent to the place at the time. They are passionate about the industry and passionate about people's careers. LMRE spend time with each client to become and an extension of the business, and their transparency and core values help them grow with the sector. LMRE simplify recruitment and innovate with our clients and evolve the people driven, PropTech community.

Resources Mentioned

LMRE website www.lmre.tech

Blueprit website www.blueprint.connectiv.com

Blueprint October 4-6 2021 event - get your ticket HERE

Blueprint list of event speakers www.blueprint.connectiv.com/#speakers

RXR website www.rxrrealty.com

Thomvest www.thomvest.com

For full episode transcript head to www.lmre.tech/blog