BrickVest has raised $1m from twenty influential investors to build the first ever pan-European online real estate investment platform. Founded by Dr. Thomas Schneider, Emmanuel Lumineau and Adalbert Wysocki, BrickVest is revolutionising real estate investment by bringing together property owners, developers and investors for online, direct, transparent access to global real estate.

The platform will launch this summer, offering unprecedented access to the European and North American real estate markets from as little as €1,000. The fund raising is backed by angel investors from the real estate and technology industries, including Harvard University Professor in Real Estate Finance, Richard Peiser.

The founders are using their collective experience of more than 30 years investing in the real estate and technology sectors to seize a unique opportunity to create innovative investment products. In a market dominated by a few financial gatekeepers, these industry transforming products will significantly increase the level of transparency while reducing the costs of sourcing, structuring and managing investments.

Dr. Schneider says: “The real estate investment industry has long been closed off to new investors by the same group of major players. With the launch of BrickVest’s online investment platform, we are smashing through an opaque marketplace creating access never before given in the space. For investors seeking a wide range of risk-adjusted transparent and easy to understand investments, BrickVest is that opportunity without incurring huge, unnecessary fees.

“Most existing real estate peer-to-peer funding options are actually acting as a brokerage service for investors. At BrickVest we provide full investment manager services. This includes complete governance, as well as ratings and underwriting services courtesy of our proprietary technology. This comprehensive service has never before been available to investors other than the major real estate players.”

Commenting on why he has backed the platform, Richard said: “After reviewing the concept presented by the founding team, it was clear that BrickVest has the potential to become the defacto online real estate investment platform globally.  A multitude of financial services have been fundamentally altered by the use of web technology and BrickVest will do the same for real estate investment.”