Proptech startup Smart Bricks raises $5 million pre-seed led by a16z

Source: TechCrunch

Background

Mohamed Mohamed spent much of his career at institutions such as BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, and McKinsey, where he observed that “real estate was treated as a computational problem.” These firms relied on proprietary data pipelines, internal valuation models, simulation tools, and early AI systems to support underwriting and capital allocation.

He noticed that ordinary investors lacked access to such advanced tools. Friends were coordinating deals on WhatsApp or storing critical information in PDFs, resulting in a fragmented data layer, inconsistent modeling, and limited visibility into risk, liquidity, and execution.

Founding Smart Bricks

In 2024, Mohamed left Boston Consulting Group to launch Smart Bricks, an AI‑powered proptech platform that helps investors discover high‑quality real estate opportunities. The company operates out of London and San Francisco.

The product ingests millions of public and proprietary data points covering pricing, liquidity, transaction history, supply, and financing terms. It features an autonomous reasoning system that goes beyond listing deals, mapping each opportunity to expected outcomes using automated valuation models, cash‑flow forecasting, downside risk modeling, and market reasoning.

Smart Bricks AI tools also streamline the transaction workflow—traditionally a weeks‑long process involving lawyers, analysts, and brokers—by allowing users to employ AI agents for end‑to‑end execution. After a deal is brokered, the platform continuously updates performance data, simulates refinancing scenarios, and recommends actions as market conditions evolve.

Funding Round

The company announced a $5 million pre‑seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). Participating investors include South Loop Ventures, Cornerstone VC, Techstars, and angel investors affiliated with OpenAI, Airbnb, Anthropic, Blackstone, and DeepMind. Smart Bricks is also part of a16z’s Speedrun program.

Use of Capital

• Expanding infrastructure into additional markets (currently the U.S., U.K., and the UAE—Mohamed’s home country).
• Advancing product features and AI capabilities.

Vision for Proptech

Mohamed argues that the previous wave of proptech overlooked the sector’s core bottleneck: cognition and execution. He describes real‑estate transactions as “slow and opaque because the reasoning lives in people’s heads and the process spans too many disconnected systems.”

Smart Bricks aims to transform real estate into a modern financial system, akin to the intelligence layers and automated execution seen in public markets. Mohamed likens the platform to what Bloomberg did for public markets or what algorithmic trading platforms achieved for equities, emphasizing that the goal is not merely to present more options but to enable better outcomes through autonomous reasoning.

Competitive Landscape

Other players in the space include reAlpha and RoofStock. Mohamed differentiates Smart Bricks by noting that while competitors build on existing tech stacks, Smart Bricks has developed its own foundational stack, positioning it closer to the infrastructure that underpins modern financial markets.