Shared 27 May, 2025
Dar Ventures – the UAE-based venture capital (VC) arm of Dar, a world‑class design and engineering consultancy and the founder of the award-winning top 10 international design collaborative Sidara – has invested in Pi Labs’ latest built environment technology fund, enhancing its exposure to start-ups at the cutting edge of innovation in real estate, construction, infrastructure, and related services.
Pi Labs’ fourth institutional fund, which is targeting a £100 million close, will invest in up to 50 pre-seed to Series A companies with the potential to scale globally at pace. The fund is focusing on the new wave of AI-native start-ups developing the most compelling technology solutions to challenges across the global built environment, such as making construction more sustainable and efficient, building healthier or more liveable cities, optimising architecture, engineering, construction and property management and reducing carbon footprints of commercial assets.
Dar Ventures joins Pi Labs’ global LP network which comprises blue-chip real estate investors and developers. The network includes Dutch pension fund APG; Abu-Dhabi based Aldar; UK and European institutions such as Patrizia, Assura, Revcap, Helical, and Sellar; and investors and developers from further afield such as the Indian developer Embassy Group, Hong Kong developer Swire Properties, and Canada’s Hopewell Group.
Faysal Shair, Director and Co-Founder of Dar Ventures Said: “As leaders within the global AEC industry, Dar and Sidara have always been committed to driving innovation that empowers communities through more sustainable, more resilient, and more welcoming built environments. As such, Dar Ventures’ purpose is to support innovators who are confronting the world’s most critical challenges, and in doing so, shaping a more sustainable, resilient and digitally enabled built environment for everyone. By investing in Pi Labs’ latest fund, we can leverage our extensive AEC expertise and exposure to foster, guide, and empower the next wave of AI breakthroughs in the built world, in particular, the application of LLMs to each aspect of the real estate value chain. Through this strategic partnership with Pi Labs, we hope to continue tackling the sector’s biggest challenges, including decarbonisation and resource efficiency, in order to accelerate technologies that redefine how the built environment is designed, delivered and operated.”
Faisal Butt, Managing Partner and Founder of Pi Labs, said: “Real estate is the world’s largest asset class and faces several challenges such as labour shortages, sustainability targets, resource scarcity and costly inefficient manual processes. The good news is that this new AI wave has created multiple AI-native startups for pretty much every industry pain point. The challenge will be identifying winners and backing them at an early stage to expand into global markets. With the support of this initial closing from Dar Ventures and Sidara, and our other LPs, we are confident that the next property technology unicorns will be found.”
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BuiltAPI GmbH, the company pioneering API-driven data infrastructure for real estate investment and asset management, has successfully closed its latest funding round backed by industry leaders including Second Century Ventures, TDS, and Propertymark. The investment marks a major milestone as BuiltAPI expands its services across Europe and the UK, following its graduation from the REACH UK Accelerator Program.
BuiltAPI tackles one of the real estate sector’s most persistent problems: fragmented, siloed data ecosystems. The company provides a robust API framework that enables seamless connectivity between legacy systems, modern SaaS tools, and intelligent automation platforms — with interoperability, governance, and cybersecurity at its core.
“We’re building the backbone of real estate data infrastructure,” said Olga Dentzel, Co-Founder of BuiltAPI. “This funding and the support of the REACH UK program are accelerating our ability to deliver secure, scalable integrations to clients across borders.”
BuiltAPI’s technology is already making an impact with major real estate institutions such as HIH Real Estate and its fund service platform INTREAL, through their digital unit INTREAL Solutions. These collaborations highlight a shared vision for practical and scalable digital transformation in real estate asset and investment management.
“The industry doesn’t need yet another tool — it needs a connective tissue,” added Ivan Nokhrin, Co-Founder of BuiltAPI. “Our mission is to empower real estate professionals to access, share, and act on their data securely and without barriers.”
Graduation from the REACH UK Accelerator — the scale-up program backed by Second Century Ventures – marks BuiltAPI’s official entry into the UK market. The program has played a key role in unlocking investors support and refining BuildAPI’s growth trajectory.
BuiltAPI GmbH, the company pioneering API-driven data infrastructure for real estate investment and asset management, has successfully closed its latest funding round backed by industry leaders including Second Century Ventures, TDS, and Propertymark. The investment marks a major milestone as BuiltAPI expands its services across Europe and the UK, following its graduation from the REACH UK Accelerator Program.
BuiltAPI tackles one of the real estate sector’s most persistent problems: fragmented, siloed data ecosystems. The company provides a robust API framework that enables seamless connectivity between legacy systems, modern SaaS tools, and intelligent automation platforms — with interoperability, governance, and cybersecurity at its core.
“We’re building the backbone of real estate data infrastructure,” said Olga Dentzel, Co-Founder of BuiltAPI. “This funding and the support of the REACH UK program are accelerating our ability to deliver secure, scalable integrations to clients across borders.”
BuiltAPI’s technology is already making an impact with major real estate institutions such as HIH Real Estate and its fund service platform INTREAL, through their digital unit INTREAL Solutions. These collaborations highlight a shared vision for practical and scalable digital transformation in real estate asset and investment management.
“The industry doesn’t need yet another tool — it needs a connective tissue,” added Ivan Nokhrin, Co-Founder of BuiltAPI. “Our mission is to empower real estate professionals to access, share, and act on their data securely and without barriers.”
Graduation from the REACH UK Accelerator — the scale-up program backed by Second Century Ventures – marks BuiltAPI’s official entry into the UK market. The program has played a key role in unlocking investors support and refining BuildAPI’s growth trajectory.
*Offer ends on Friday, 7th February.
