Globes readers select Atlas Make investments as favourite 2025 startup

Atlas Make investments, which has developed a digital platform permitting actual property builders to lift 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 inside developer portal and platform for software program builders, and in third place was cybersecurity firm Zero Networks, which helps firms 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 firms within the ballot embody: cloud backup firm EON, which has develop 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 property.

Atlas Make investments’s story started virtually 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, in search of financing for initiatives. “At first, they did not perceive why they had been being approached,” says Tal Shahar, the CEO and third accomplice. “However slowly the image turned clearer – the banks are merely not involved in 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 shortage of response from banks, turned 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 as we speak, joined the Peleds.

On the finish of 2022, they based Atlas Make investments to develop a platform that will join institutional traders and actual estate-backed loans – exactly the place the normal market has issue 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 to date brokered transactions price greater than $60 million by means of its platform, in line with the entrepreneurs.

The corporate doesn’t grant the loans itself, however quite 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 stable choice – to satisfy in a wise approach,” explains Shahar. A stable choice, he provides, is an funding that’s thought-about comparatively secure – 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 approach than is at present widespread 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 conventional, human-based method, with plenty of varieties, guide processes and sluggish response instances. “Anybody who begins a fund of $100 or $200 million shortly discovers that it’s tough for them to develop past that,” explains Shahar. “As such a fund grows, it might not deal with numerous small loans – it merely doesn’t pay for itself operationally. That’s the reason they abandon this area, and that’s precisely the place we are available in.”

Key gamers at present energetic within the area 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 thousands and thousands of {dollars}. Alongside these, there are additionally firms equivalent to Sharestates, which presents asset-backed loans in a crowdfunding mannequin, and Upright, which primarily appeals to certified traders.

In keeping with Atlas, most gamers out there 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 numerous small transactions effectively and shortly – or within the phrases of the expertise world, “work at scale” – to carry out many operations with out dropping management or growing 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 means of the platform are for actual property initiatives within the US. “The principle motive for that is the supply of knowledge,” explains Shahar. “Within the US, there’s excessive accessibility to knowledge – each on property and debtors – and this permits us to carry out an in-depth evaluation of every transaction. In Europe and Israel, this info merely doesn’t exist on the similar decision, so we’re at present centered on the US market. Sooner or later, we might broaden, 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 at present on the verge of closing a major cope with a big institutional physique – a deal, which is valued at double the entire quantity of capital raised to date. “This deal will enable us to achieve profitability within the quick time period,” he says.

Shahar stresses that Atlas’ method differs from that of different startups available on the market. “I do not consider in operating after funding and not using a actual marketing strategy.” He says, “We’re transferring 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 enticing 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 probably 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.