Author: JLL Spark

Commercial real estate tenants and property managers have to abide by strict liability rules that any vendor entering the property must have insurance certificates and meet other requirements. The approval process for this currently can take days and is still largely done on paper.

Enter Jones. The New York-based commercial real estate startup is curating a marketplace of pre-approved vendors for tenants and property managers to find and hire the people they need in a compliant way.

To continue advancing its network, the company announced Monday it raised $12.5 million in Series A funding led by JLL Spark and Khosla Ventures that also included strategic investors Camber Creek, Rudin Management, DivcoWest and Sage Realty. This new investment brings Jones’ total raised to $20 million, according to Crunchbase data.

Kitty Sullivan is a principal at JLL Spark, a strategic venture fund that invests in early stage proptech companies. She previously worked at carpooling startup Scoop, LinkedIn, and management consultancies Bain & Company and Monitor Group. She is passionate about mentoring and collaborating with startups of all sizes on strategy, business ops, and growth. She has a B.A. from Bowdoin College and an MBA from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

Proptech investing started largely as a balance sheet cost for managers to drive efficiencies in their real estate portfolios. Today, it is the focus of a whole new wave of capital raising, highlighted by PERE’S inaugural Proptech 20 ranking.