InvestNext Overview
Founded in 2016, InvestNext is an investment management platform born out of the need to manage REITs more efficiently. It is a full-service investment management provider that allows real estate companies to manage and raise capital for all types of capital structures, including syndications, debt and equity funds, and REITs.
Gone are the days of manual processes and disparate spreadsheets. InvestNext helps streamline investment operations, manage investor relations, track deals, and automate workflows. CRE companies can move away from archaic and cumbersome processes and focus on growing their business while cutting administrative costs.
Our Take On InvestNext
Best for real estate companies looking for an all-in-one investment management tool.
InvestNext is a top choice for real estate companies looking for an all-in-one investment management solution that streamlines the entire syndication process from accreditation to commitment, distribution, and receiving funds.
Pros- Offers the fastest onboarding on the market, with exceptional customer support
- Supports all capital structures, including syndications, debt and equity funds, and REITs, while offering integrated KYC/AML verification services
- Can manage debt offerings with multiple terms, maturity dates, interest rates, and more
- Backed by industry-leading security and SOC 2 Type 2-certified, offering financial-grade security
Cons- InvestNext is a young company still in its growth phase
- Lower tiers won’t have access to the full suite of product offerings or a dedicated customer support manager
Pros Explained
Onboarding and Customer Support: Migrating to a new system can be intimidating and time-consuming for companies. InvestNext’s dedicated onboarding teams take the headaches out of onboarding, boasting a 45-day process from start to finish, the fastest among its competitors.
Seamless and Automated Workflow: The investing process is entirely automated. Investors can easily commit funds, verify their accreditation status, sign subscription documents, and fund transactions in a streamlined manner.
Support for all Capital Structures: InvestNext was born out of the need for successful REIT management. The platform is designed for multiple equity and debt classes, TICs, Fund of Funds, and other complex entity structures.
Debt Fund Capabilities: InvestNext is one of the only platforms that can manage debt fund offerings. Users can configure offerings with options such as maturity date or term length, interest rate, minimum and maximum investment amounts, accrual and flat rates, auto-close for each class, and early pay-offs and roll-offs.
Waterfall Calculation Tool: InvestNext’s tool can create and calculate complex waterfalls, automatically calculate distributions, and send secure payments to investors with a few clicks, eliminating the need for error-prone spreadsheet calculations.
Industry-Leading Security: InvestNext offers the highest industry standard for encryption, data storage, and authentication. The technology is built with financial institution-grade security, ensuring investor info is always safe.
Integrated Investor Verification (KYC/AML): InvestNext’s KYC solution integrates with the investor portal and CRM and allows users to send requests, manage rejections, and track statuses directly in the platform. This eliminates manual steps and keeps companies compliant with FINRA regulations.
InvestNext Sponsor Dashboard
Cons Explained
Short company track record: InvestNext was founded in 2016 in Detroit, MI, so it’s still in its growth phase. The company has received backing from Hyde Park Venture Partners, Detroit Venture Partners, Whitecap Venture Partners, Grand Ventures, and ID Ventures. InvestNext currently manages over 1,600 clients and over $14B in equity.
Not all tiers have access to all features: While the All-in-One pricing tier offers features that most companies would need, users must upgrade to an Enterprise subscription to access KYC/AML and receive a dedicated customer service manager. However, lower pricing tiers can still access KYC/AML at pay-per-use pricing.
InvestNext Product Offerings
InvestNext offers comprehensive tools and services to assist real estate companies with fundraising and investment management. Some of InvestNext’s key features include:
Raising Capital
InvestNext’s fundraising feature streamlines capital raising with sophisticated, user-friendly marketing tools that automate administrative tasks.
It includes customizable deal rooms for promoting, supports multiple equity classes and debt in projects, and enables secure ACH funding. The system facilitates quick funding with auto-populated subscription documents, integrated e-signatures, accreditation verification, and KYC compliance.
Once an investor funds, InvestNext automatically updates the cap table, saving companies hours of administrative work.
InvestNext Fundraising Dashboard
Investor Portal
The investor portal offers a personalized and white-glove experience for investors, providing a clean and easy-to-navigate interface with anytime access to investment performance. It supports inbound ACH payments with high limits, automates distribution calculations, and facilitates secure payments to investors.
The portal also includes document management and reporting features, allowing for intelligent display, document organization, templates of critical documents, and secure sharing with investors.
InvestNext Investor Portal
CRM
InvestNext’s CRM offers customizable features and filters that encourage users to interact confidently with investors, including personalized emails with custom groupings and engagement metrics. Users can also connect their email directly to the server, eliminating the need to BCC a unique email address on every communication, as many other CRMs require.
The CRM lets users manage, track, and accelerate fundraising via customizable pipelines, drag-and-drop tracking, and automated integration with InvestNext’s capital-raising features.
Users can easily organize and templatize investor documents, statements, and reports for secure sharing, eliminating hours of admin tasks typically spent compiling and sending these documents.
InvestNext Fundraising Pipeline
User Experience
The InvestNext platform offers a user-friendly experience for CRE companies and investors. Companies can easily create deal rooms, manage investors, make distributions, and more. Some features may have a short learning curve, but the InvestNext support team is always there to help.
From an investor perspective, InvestNext is also intuitive and easy to use. The investor portal makes it easy for investors to view all their investments, either in total or broken down by investing entity. The subscription and funding process is also easy for investors to navigate.
Customer Support
InvestNext’s in-house real estate investment management experts partner with subscribers to provide personalized support, webinars, and training guides to save time and make the most of the platform. Subscribers will receive a dedicated customer service rep and a data integration manager who will oversee the onboarding process and ongoing client relationships.
The InvestNext website offers an extensive Learning Center, offering step-by-step training videos and articles to assist users with all facets of the platform. Additionally, users can submit support requests through the website’s chatbot.
But as they say, the proof is in the pudding: InvestNext currently averages 95% customer satisfaction and boasts 98% client retention rates.
Pricing
InvestNext offers three pricing tiers:
- Fundraising: $99 per month
- Best for first-time capital raisers without existing investors
- All-in-One: Starting at $499 per month (12-month commitment). Pricing based on FUM (investor funds under management)
- Best for experienced firms with existing investors and up to $300M in funds under management.
- Offering everything a sponsor needs to automate investor reporting, distributions, and other back-office operations.
- Enterprise: Pricing based on company FUM
- Best for institutional firms with more than $300M in funds under management
- Offers premium, hands-on service designed to help manage the entire investment lifecycle
Competitors
Juniper Square
Juniper Square is one of the biggest real estate investment management platforms on the market today. Originally designed for real estate investment managers to streamline fundraising, investor reporting, and investment management processes, Juniper Square is used by a wide range of real estate firms, including private equity firms, developers, and fund managers.
Unlike Juniper Square, InvestNext is solely focused on real estate. Juniper Square targets private markets, including venture capital, private equity, and real estate. Juniper Square lacks support for multiple contribution start dates and only allows one waterfall model per project. In contrast, InvestNext supports complex distribution waterfalls with extensive customization options. Juniper Square does not support multiple equity classes or debt funds, while InvestNext makes it easy to manage different positions. InvestNext also offers advanced deal rooms with integrated compliance services like accreditation and KYC checks, whereas Juniper Square only enables wire/check payments and lacks ACH transfers. Additionally, InvestNext provides a faster and cost-efficient onboarding process for all customers, along with comprehensive co-sponsor capital raising that protects investor data.
Agora is a comprehensive real estate investment management platform that helps companies raise capital, manage their investors, and streamline operations. Agora includes a customizable investor portal, CRM, fundraising tools, document management, investor reporting, and financial automation.
While Agora only has inbound payments via wire or check, InvestNext allows fast, secure ACH transfers for sending and receiving payments. InvestNext also supports the creation of complex waterfall distributions with automatic calculations and the ability to adjust unit prices and market values, whereas Agora has limitations in these areas. Additionally, InvestNext offers integrated accreditation verification, co-sponsor capital raising, and fully integrated KYC/AML verification, which are features Agora doesn’t currently provide. Finally, InvestNext provides a faster onboarding process with go-live in just a few weeks, while Agora’s onboarding can take several months.
Appfolio Investment Manager
As one-half of the Appfolio property software suite alongside Appfolio Property Manager, AppFolio Investment Management is a cloud-based software platform designed to help investment managers streamline their operations and manage their portfolios more efficiently. It offers portfolio tracking, performance reporting, client comms tools, and compliance monitoring.
Compared to Appfolio, InvestNext is much more user-friendly and intuitive. Appfolio mainly focuses on its property management software, so its investment management software and features aren’t as robust, and no new features are planned. InvestNext’s only focus is on providing top-tier investment management tools.
SyndicationPro
A real estate syndication software company specifically focused on the needs of real estate syndication companies, SyndicationPro helps sponsors raise capital and manage assets. The platform includes a CRM, investor portal, fundraising automation, and ACH payments.
Unlike SyndicationPro, InvestNext supports all investment vehicles, including funds and REITs. SyndicationPro has a more limited scope that focuses purely on syndications.
FAQs
InvestNext is an investment management platform that helps CRE companies streamline investment operations, automate workflows, raise capital, and manage investor relations.
While InvestNext doesn’t offer a free trial, potential users can request a live product demo. The website also has an extensive Learning Center with training videos and articles, giving potential users a first-hand look at the software’s key features and functions.
InvestNext is geared toward GPs, LPs, and Investor Relations teams that manage syndications, open- and close-ended funds, debt funds, REITs, and more.
InvestNext offers three pricing tiers. Fundraising tier membership is $99 per month, best for first-time capital raisers. The All-in-One tier starts at $499 per month, best for experienced firms with existing investors and up to $300M in funds under management. Pricing for the Enterprise tier is based on AUM and is best for firms with over $300M in funds under management looking for white-label services.
How We Evaluated InvestNext
When evaluating InvestNext, we examined several factors, including:
- Product and service offerings: We dug into InvestNext’s features, products, and services, including its full suite of parking management services.
- Pros and Cons: We checked the boxes on what potential clients are looking for and compared features that make InvestNext stand out from its competitors.
- Ease of use: We examined how user-friendly InvestNext’s analytics platform is, how intuitive the onboarding process can be, and also how quickly a new user is likely to understand and take advantage of the platform’s full functionality.
- Customer support: We evaluated InvestNext’s existing customer support network and scored it on response times, training materials, and access to customer service reps.
- Pricing and transparency: We examined how InvestNext products and services are priced and whether readily available pricing info is available on its website.
Summary of InvestNext Review
Flexibility and automation are a company’s greatest assets when competing to raise capital in commercial real estate. Growing firms must be able to quickly raise funds, automate workflows, send distributions and reporting, and manage investor relationships.
InvestNext aims to be the most user-friendly, all-encompassing investment management platform for CRE companies. By adopting InvestNext’s platform, firms are empowered to raise capital with support for funds, debt funds, open-ended funds, syndications, capital calls, co-sponsors, and multiple equity and debt classes in the same offering, all while delivering an exceptional experience to their investors.
Disclaimer
This page may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase or investment through these links, CRE Daily LLC may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. These recommendations are based on our direct experience with these companies and are suggested for their usefulness and effectiveness. We advise only purchasing products that you believe will assist in reaching your business objectives and investment goals. Nothing in this message should be regarded as investment advice, either on behalf of a particular security or regarding an overall investment strategy, a recommendation, an offer to sell, or a solicitation of or an offer to buy any security. Advice from a securities professional is strongly advised, and we recommend that you consult with a financial advisor, attorney, accountant, and any other professional who can help you understand and assess the risks associated with any real estate investment. For any questions or assistance, feel free to contact [email protected]. We’re here to help!
