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 corporations 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 corporations within the ballot embody: cloud backup firm EON, which has change into a sensation with traders; Asterix, the cybersecurity firm for AI brokers; AI-based programming engine Qodo; hospital fee system PayZen; and Agora, which supplies a fintech answer for actual property investments, from the angle of managing joint investments in belongings.
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 surprising inquiries from actual property builders within the US, searching for financing for tasks. “At first, they did not perceive why they have been being approached,” says Tal Shahar, the CEO and third accomplice. “However slowly the image grew to become clearer – the banks are merely not fascinated 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, grew to become a possibility. Shahar, who comes from a expertise 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 energetic at this time, 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 normal market has problem working.
Immediately, simply three years after it was based, the corporate has workplaces in New York and Tel Aviv, 24 workers – most of them in Israel – and has up to now brokered transactions price greater than $60 million by way of its platform, in line with the entrepreneurs.
The corporate doesn’t grant the loans itself, however slightly supplies 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 traders who’re in search of a strong possibility – to satisfy in a wise manner,” explains Shahar. A strong possibility, he provides, is an funding that’s thought of comparatively protected – with low threat and steady returns. “Our expertise analyzes all transactions in actual time – asset valuation, threat identification, due diligence – in a a lot deeper and extra environment friendly manner than is presently frequent with personal lenders.”
Previous 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 regularly function in a standard, human-based method, with a lot of kinds, guide processes and sluggish response instances. “Anybody who begins a fund of $100 or $200 million rapidly discovers that it’s troublesome for them to develop past that,” explains Shahar. “As such a fund grows, it might probably not deal with a lot of 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 in.”
Key gamers presently energetic within the discipline embody personal lenders equivalent to Hirshmark and S3 Capital, which give attention to offering financing to actual property builders, usually in quantities of tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars}. Alongside these, there are additionally corporations equivalent to Sharestates, which provides asset-backed loans in a crowdfunding mannequin, and Upright, which primarily appeals to certified traders.
In accordance with Atlas, most gamers available in the market nonetheless depend on conventional working fashions, with guide evaluation processes and decentralized threat administration. As well as, Atlas Make investments’s nice benefit, in line with Shahar, lies in the truth that the system they developed permits them to handle a lot of small transactions effectively and rapidly – or within the phrases of the expertise 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 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 offered by way of the platform are for actual property tasks within the US. “The principle cause for that is the supply of information,” explains Shahar. “Within the US, there may be excessive accessibility to information – each on belongings and debtors – and this enables us to carry out an in-depth evaluation of every transaction. In Europe and Israel, this info merely doesn’t exist on the identical decision, so we’re presently 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 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 equivalent 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 presently on the verge of closing a big take care of a big institutional physique – a deal, which is valued at double the full quantity of capital raised up to now. “This deal will enable us to achieve profitability within the brief time period,” he says.
Shahar stresses that Atlas’ method differs from that of different startups in the marketplace. “I do not consider in working after funding with no actual marketing strategy.” He says, “We’re shifting ahead responsibly – with precise income, energetic prospects and progress based mostly 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 answer.”
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 listing is being compiled for the nineteenth yr by the votes of 80 enterprise capital tech traders energetic in Israel
Revealed by Globes, Israel enterprise information – en.globes.co.il – on April 21, 2025.
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