Lookthrough acquires BuildingMinds in real estate AI tie-up
Lookthrough, a Zurich-based real estate decision intelligence platform, and BuildingMinds, a Berlin-based AI data platform for real estate portfolio management, have announced a merger to create a combined institutional real estate software business. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026, subject to customary conditions.
The combined entity will cover more than 100,000 buildings across 64 countries and six continents, making it one of the larger proprietary datasets in institutional real estate. The companies describe the business as profitable at close, a claim that carries weight in a proptech segment where many AI-native vendors remain loss-making. Schindler Group, the Swiss elevator and escalator manufacturer that originally established BuildingMinds as an internal venture, will retain a position as the largest institutional shareholder of Lookthrough following the transaction.
The deal
BuildingMinds will retain its brand, Berlin headquarters, and client-facing teams under the new structure. Marek Sacha, its chief executive, will remain in post during the transition period before moving to a non-executive board role. Marcel Staub, CEO and founder of Lookthrough, will lead the combined company. Existing client contracts, service commitments and platform operations are described as unchanged.
Crucially for enterprise buyers in regulated markets, BuildingMinds' EU hosting arrangement and its ISO 27001 and SOC 2 certifications carry over. These credentials matter to institutional investors and public-sector clients operating under frameworks such as SFDR, the EU Taxonomy and GRESB, which impose stringent data governance requirements. The combined platform automates ESG data collection, decarbonisation planning and compliance reporting across those frameworks.
Sacha framed the rationale in commercial rather than compliance terms. "Together, we cover more than 100,000 buildings in a profitable company. That is rare in this market, and it matters to fund and asset managers choosing a long-term technology partner," he said.
Market context
The merger reflects a broader consolidation wave in proptech, where a generation of ESG-reporting and portfolio-analytics tools built during the 2020 to 2023 funding boom is now rationalising. Institutional investors increasingly want platforms that move beyond regulatory box-ticking toward asset-level investment decisions: which properties to acquire, dispose of or retrofit, and at what projected return. That shift in buyer demand is compressing the viable market for pure-play reporting tools and favouring vendors that can connect sustainability data to financial performance metrics.
Lookthrough and BuildingMinds are positioning the combined platform squarely in that direction. Staub described the logic as solving two sequential problems: "BuildingMinds has solved the industry's data problem. Together, we're solving its decision problem."
Competitors operating in adjacent territory include a number of well-funded European and North American proptech vendors offering portfolio analytics, climate risk scoring and AI-assisted asset management. The combined company's claim to differentiation rests on dataset scale, the depth of its ESG compliance automation, and the outcome-linked fee model Lookthrough operates at asset level.
The regulatory tailwind is significant. SFDR Level 2 requirements and the EU Taxonomy's technical screening criteria have materially raised the data-collection burden on real estate fund managers. GRESB benchmarking participation continues to grow globally. Any platform that reduces the manual overhead of meeting those requirements while simultaneously surfacing investable insights will find a receptive institutional audience. The combined company's EU hosting posture also positions it well as data-sovereignty expectations tighten across the bloc under emerging guidance from supervisory authorities.
Lookthrough currently serves clients in 15 countries from offices in Zurich, Copenhagen, Amsterdam and Vienna. The deal is expected to extend that reach across BuildingMinds' existing fund and public-sector client base in Germany and internationally.