Israeli-Founded Commercial Real Estate Startup Jones Raises $12.5M

Jones, the Israeli commercial real estate startup that automates the insurance compliance process for tenants and property managers, raised a $12.5 Series A funding round, according to a company announcement on Monday.

The round was led by JLL Spark, a division of the US commercial real estate services firm JLL (Jones Lang LaSalle), and Khosla Ventures, and joined by several other participants including Camber Creek, Rudin Management, DivcoWest, and Sage Realty.

Founded in 2017, Jones has sought to simplify risk and compliance for commercial property managers by leveraging AI technology for a software platform that functions as an easy-to-use tool to reduce time spent and errors made on processing vendor approvals. The technology could reduce the 12-day lead time for an approval to 2.5 days with higher accuracy, the company says. 

“For too long, the commercial real estate industry has been held back by a burdensome compliance process that’s more focused on who can’t come into buildings than on how to get work done,” said Jones CEO and co-founder Omri Stern in a company statement. “We’re excited to use this investment to accelerate our mission to make it easier to get work done while ensuring best-in-class compliance.”

Jones said it will deploy its funding to support its clients, including some of the largest real estate firms in the US such as Lincoln Property Company, Prologis, DivcoWest, Rudin Management, Sage Realty, and JLL.

Yishai Lerner, co-CEO of JLL Technologies, said that Jones’ efforts towards “automating the insurance compliance process end-to-end, building a system of record that improves liability management and creating a never-before-seen marketplace for trusted vendors” demonstrate “innovation in the proptech industry that turns problems on their head — creating solutions while also creating new opportunities.” 

“We are proud to have been a partner with Jones for the past 18 months, and their vendor network is exactly the kind of solution our industry has been needing,” said Michael Rudin, Executive Vice President of Rudin Management. “While such solutions have existed in the consumer space, the particular dynamics of our industry have acted as barriers to innovation and efficiency. At the end of the day, our tenants just want to be able to get work done as easily and efficiently as possible, and we are excited to see Jones make that a reality.”

Jones is based in New York with an R&D team in Israel.

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