Atlas Make investments, which has developed a digital platform permitting actual property builders to lift capital and loans from buyers, has been voted by “Globes” readers as their favourite startup, as a part of the Globes Most Promising Startup Rankings for 2025. In second place was Port.io, which has developed an inside developer portal and platform for software program builders, and in third place was cybersecurity firm Zero Networks, which helps firms cope hackers on enterprise networks, primarily in stopping ransomware assaults.
Some 6,000 “Globes” web site readers participated within the ballot over the previous week, which included 30 progress stage startups. Different firms within the ballot embody: cloud backup firm EON, which has turn out to be a sensation with buyers; Asterix, the cybersecurity firm for AI brokers; AI-based programming engine Qodo; hospital fee system PayZen; and Agora, which gives a fintech resolution for actual property investments, from the attitude of managing joint investments in property.
Atlas Make investments’s story started virtually by chance. Roni and Nir Peled, father and son, veteran builders in Israel’s actual property sector, started receiving sudden inquiries from actual property builders within the US, looking for financing for initiatives. “At first, they did not perceive why they have been being approached,” says Tal Shahar, the CEO and third companion. “However slowly the image turned clearer – the banks are merely not interested by dealing with small, short-term loans, as a result of the working prices are too excessive for them.”
The necessity that these builders recognized, together with the dearth of response from banks, turned a chance. Shahar, who comes from a know-how and funding background, with a level in laptop science and entrepreneurship, expertise in founding a earlier startup and a partnership within the enterprise capital fund Deep Perception, the place he’s nonetheless lively at the moment, joined the Peleds.
On the finish of 2022, they based Atlas Make investments to develop a platform that may join institutional buyers and actual estate-backed loans – exactly the place the standard market has issue working.
Immediately, simply three years after it was based, the corporate has workplaces in New York and Tel Aviv, 24 staff – most of them in Israel – and has to this point brokered transactions value greater than $60 million by way of its platform, in response to the entrepreneurs.
The corporate doesn’t grant the loans itself, however somewhat gives institutional entities – together with funding homes, funds and household workplaces – with a technological infrastructure that permits them to handle and distribute investments in actual estate-backed loans within the US, whereas saving time and prices.
“We allow each events – builders who want fast financing, and buyers who’re on the lookout for a stable possibility – to fulfill in a wise method,” explains Shahar. A stable possibility, he provides, is an funding that’s thought-about comparatively protected – with low danger and steady returns. “Our know-how analyzes all transactions in actual time – asset valuation, danger identification, due diligence – in a a lot deeper and extra environment friendly method than is at present widespread with non-public lenders.”
Previous market, new platform
The short-term mortgage marketplace for actual property builders within the US has been dominated for years by small non-public lenders, which frequently function in a conventional, human-based method, with numerous kinds, handbook processes and sluggish response occasions. “Anybody who begins a fund of $100 or $200 million shortly discovers that it’s troublesome for them to develop past that,” explains Shahar. “As such a fund grows, it might now not deal with numerous small loans – it merely doesn’t pay for itself operationally. That’s the reason they abandon this subject, and that’s precisely the place we are available.”
Key gamers at present lively within the subject embody non-public lenders resembling Hirshmark and S3 Capital, which give attention to offering financing to actual property builders, typically in quantities of tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars}. Alongside these, there are additionally firms resembling Sharestates, which presents asset-backed loans in a crowdfunding mannequin, and Upright, which primarily appeals to certified buyers.
Based on Atlas, most gamers out there nonetheless depend on conventional working fashions, with handbook evaluate processes and decentralized danger administration. As well as, Atlas Make investments’s nice benefit, in response to Shahar, lies in the truth that the system they developed permits them to handle numerous small transactions effectively and shortly – or within the phrases of the know-how world, “work at scale” – to carry out many operations with out shedding management or rising the price of the method. He additionally stresses the give attention to the amount of loans, with the corporate concentrating – not like its rivals – on loans of as much as $20 million.
The corporate has a B2B enterprise mannequin, which addresses solely institutional entities. All loans supplied by way of the platform are for actual property initiatives within the US. “The primary motive for that is the supply of information,” explains Shahar. “Within the US, there may be excessive accessibility to information – each on property and debtors – and this enables us to carry out an in-depth evaluation of every transaction. In Europe and Israel, this data merely doesn’t exist on the identical decision, so we’re at present centered on the US market. Sooner or later, we might develop, however not within the foreseeable future.”
Raised $13 million
Since its inception, the corporate has raised $13 million in three financing rounds, the newest of which was when it raised $8.5 million in November 2024. Among the many buyers are the enterprise capital funds State of Thoughts Ventures and The Storage Fund (which led the final spherical), together with non-public buyers resembling Man Gamzu, Boaz Schwartz, Jonathan Kolber and Roy Oron. Together with them are additionally the Anfield household funding workplace and holding firm SaxeCap.
Shahar says that Atlas is at present on the verge of closing a major cope with a big institutional physique – a deal, which is valued at double the overall quantity of capital raised to this point. “This deal will permit us to succeed in profitability within the quick time period,” he says.
Shahar stresses that Atlas’ strategy differs from that of different startups in the marketplace. “I do not consider in operating after funding with out a actual marketing strategy.” He says, “We’re transferring ahead responsibly – with precise income, lively clients and progress based mostly on a transparent want.” Within the context of latest market turmoil and Trump’s tariff coverage, Shahar notes that uncertainty really performs to their benefit. “In occasions of volatility, buyers have a tendency to hunt stability,” he says, “and actual estate-backed loans are seen as a safer and extra enticing resolution.”
The Tech-IL Convention will happen on Wednesday, April 23 at Startup Nation Central in Tel Aviv, when the “Globes” rankings of the ten most promising startups in 2025 will likely be revealed. The checklist is being compiled for the nineteenth yr by the votes of 80 enterprise capital tech buyers lively in Israel
Printed by Globes, Israel enterprise information – en.globes.co.il – on April 21, 2025.
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