Atlas Make investments, which has developed a digital platform permitting actual property builders to boost capital and loans from traders, 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 inner 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 grow to be a sensation with traders; Asterix, the cybersecurity firm for AI brokers; AI-based programming engine Qodo; hospital cost system PayZen; and Agora, which supplies a fintech resolution for actual property investments, from the attitude of managing joint investments in property.
Atlas Make investments’s story started nearly 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, searching for financing for initiatives. “At first, they did not perceive why they have been being approached,” says Tal Shahar, the CEO and third associate. “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 possibility. Shahar, who comes from a know-how and funding background, with a level in pc 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 in the present day, joined the Peleds.
On the finish of 2022, they based Atlas Make investments to develop a platform that may join institutional traders and actual estate-backed loans – exactly the place the standard market has issue working.
In the present day, simply three years after it was based, the corporate has places of work in New York and Tel Aviv, 24 workers – most of them in Israel – and has thus far brokered transactions price greater than $60 million by means of its platform, in response to the entrepreneurs.
The corporate doesn’t grant the loans itself, however relatively supplies institutional entities – together with funding homes, funds and household places of work – 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 traders who’re in search of a strong possibility – to fulfill in a wise approach,” explains Shahar. A strong possibility, he provides, is an funding that’s thought-about comparatively protected – with low danger and secure 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 approach than is at the moment widespread with personal lenders.”
Outdated market, new platform
The short-term mortgage marketplace for actual property builders within the US has been dominated for years by small personal lenders, which frequently function in a standard, human-based method, with a number of varieties, handbook processes and gradual response instances. “Anybody who begins a fund of $100 or $200 million shortly discovers that it’s tough for them to develop past that,” explains Shahar. “As such a fund grows, it may possibly now not deal with numerous small loans – it merely doesn’t pay for itself operationally. That’s the reason they abandon this discipline, and that’s precisely the place we are available.”
Key gamers at the moment lively within the discipline embody personal lenders comparable to Hirshmark and S3 Capital, which deal with offering financing to actual property builders, usually in quantities of tens of tens of millions of {dollars}. Alongside these, there are additionally firms comparable to Sharestates, which provides asset-backed loans in a crowdfunding mannequin, and Upright, which primarily appeals to certified traders.
In line with Atlas, most gamers available in the market nonetheless depend on conventional working fashions, with handbook overview 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 deal with the quantity 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 means of the platform are for actual property initiatives within the US. “The primary motive for that is the supply of knowledge,” explains Shahar. “Within the US, there’s 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 similar decision, so we’re at the moment centered on the US market. Sooner or later, we could develop, however not within the foreseeable future.”
Raised $13 million
Since its inception, the corporate has raised $13 million in three financing rounds, the latest of which was when it raised $8.5 million in November 2024. Among the many traders are the enterprise capital funds State of Thoughts Ventures and The Storage Fund (which led the final spherical), together with personal traders comparable to 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 the moment on the verge of closing a big take care of a big institutional physique – a deal, which is valued at double the overall quantity of capital raised thus far. “This deal will enable us to succeed in profitability within the quick time period,” he says.
Shahar stresses that Atlas’ strategy differs from that of different startups available on the market. “I do not imagine in operating after funding with no actual marketing strategy.” He says, “We’re transferring ahead responsibly – with precise income, lively clients and progress primarily based on a transparent want.” Within the context of latest market turmoil and Trump’s tariff coverage, Shahar notes that uncertainty truly performs to their benefit. “In instances of volatility, traders have a tendency to hunt stability,” he says, “and actual estate-backed loans are seen as a safer and extra engaging 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 can be revealed. The listing is being compiled for the nineteenth yr by the votes of 80 enterprise capital tech traders lively in Israel
Revealed by Globes, Israel enterprise information – en.globes.co.il – on April 21, 2025.
© Copyright of Globes Writer Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2025.
