Investors have not abandoned the real estate technology sector, but they have become more selective in choosing which companies deserve funding. According to Crunchbase data, capital in 2026 is flowing increasingly toward companies that use artificial intelligence and other technologies to make construction, real estate operations, and property transactions faster and less expensive, while general real estate software and later-stage companies face greater pressure when raising capital.
This comes as the sector remains well below its pre-pandemic funding levels. Global real estate-related startups raised approximately $8.7 billion in funding from seed through growth stages during 2026 through the date the analysis was published, September 1. That compares with approximately $24 billion in 2019 and $12.3 billion in 2025. With four months remaining in the year, funding appears on track to match or slightly exceed the 2025 level.
Less Money and Fewer Deals
The decline is not limited to funding value. The sector recorded only 794 deals during 2026, compared with more than 2,400 deals in 2019 and 1,446 deals the previous year. The decline in deal volume points both to reduced investor appetite and to the possibility that the market is shifting toward larger, more concentrated rounds.
The interest-rate environment explains an important part of this shift. Interest rates ranging between 6% and 7% have made real estate investment more difficult compared with the pandemic period, when homebuyers and homeowners could obtain mortgage rates of 2.5% for 15-year loans. Those exceptional conditions supported investor interest, particularly in the United States, but they no longer represent the current market’s foundation.
Major Bets Outside the United States
The most notable feature of the 2026 data is that four of the five largest funding deals took place outside the United States. The three largest deals were in Europe, including two involving companies working in green steel.
In June, Stockholm-based Stegra raised approximately $1.6 billion in a private equity deal led by Wallenberg Investments, which became the largest owner of the six-year-old Swedish company. In August, Madrid-based Hydnum Steel raised $695 million in a round led by Cofides to develop its green steel plant, at a valuation of $3.1 billion.
The third-largest European deal went to Mews, the Amsterdam-based cloud hospitality management platform, which closed a $300 million Series D round in January at a $2.5 billion valuation, led by London-based EQT Growth. The list also included San Francisco-based Bedrock Robotics, which raised $270 million in a Series B round in February, bringing its total funding to more than $350 million and its valuation to $1.75 billion. Montreal-based Nesto, an artificial intelligence-backed digital mortgage platform, also raised $216 million in a Series E round in June at a $1.47 billion valuation.
Acquisitions Stronger Than IPOs
The same pattern appears in exits, but with mergers and acquisitions clearly outpacing public offerings. The only known major IPO in the sector during 2026 was carried out by EquipmentShare in Columbia, Missouri, a construction equipment rental company with a worksite technology platform. The company raised approximately $747 million in primary proceeds after pricing 30.5 million shares at $24.50 per share, while the total offering, including shares sold by existing owners, amounted to approximately $859 million.
By contrast, the market saw several large acquisition deals. The largest was Autodesk’s acquisition of MaintainX for $3.6 billion in cash in May. MaintainX operates an artificial intelligence-powered platform for equipment maintenance and asset management, and had reached a $2.5 billion valuation in 2025 after a $150 million Series D round.
Compass also completed its acquisition of Anywhere in January in a $1.6 billion all-stock deal, while Procore announced in July that it would acquire DroneDeploy, which specializes in aerial and ground reality-capture software, for $845 million in cash, along with a smaller acquisition of the DataGrid platform for artificial intelligence agents in the construction sector. CoStar Group completed its acquisition of Zonda, a provider of housing-market data and technology, for $800 million in cash in August. That same month, The Real Brokerage completed its acquisition of RE/MAX Holdings for $880 million, creating a new parent entity called Real REMAX Group.
What Is Changing in Practice?
Artificial intelligence does not appear to be merely an experimental topic in this market; according to the trend identified in the article, the companies attracting capital or buyers are those capable of linking technology to a measurable operational outcome: reducing spending, accelerating workflows, improving decisions, or automating routine tasks. A study by PricewaterhouseCoopers and MetaProp points to expanding use of artificial intelligence in real estate and construction, alongside the extension of real estate technology into energy, infrastructure, and climate technology.
Editorial reading: The actual shift is not a broad return to a real estate technology boom, but a redistribution of confidence and capital within the sector. Investors are not funding “real estate technology” as a single category; instead, they prefer solutions tied to a specific financial or operational problem, while large companies are using acquisitions to obtain the data, workflows, and distribution channels needed to build artificial intelligence products more quickly. Nevertheless, the figures do not prove that the sector has returned to growth; funding volume and deal count remain far below 2019 levels, and the source does not clarify how sustainable company valuations are or whether these solutions can generate actual returns at scale.