hightower11Hightower, a startup that is looking to modernize the commercial real estate industry, has landed $2.12 million in seed funding. The deal was led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Thrive Capital, with participation from RRE Ventures and a number of well known angels such as Box CEO Aaron Levie; Gary Vaynerchuck; and David Tisch.

Interestingly, the deal also includes Chris Howard and Brad Silverberg of an entity known as Fuel. We’ve heard for months that Howard and Silverberg were setting up an early-stage investment fund, following the restructuring at Ignition Partners. It appears that Fuel is the name of the new entity, and we’ve reached out to them for more details. (We’ve also heard that Howard has relocated to Silicon Valley).

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Brandon Weber

Also interesting to note in the Hightower press release is the dateline of Seattle. We’ve heard that the company — led by CEO Brandon Weber; design head Donald DeSantis and CTO Niall Smart — is moving to New York City to be closer to the heartbeat of the commercial real estate world.

A number of the company’s investors also are based in New York. Weber previously worked at Microsoft, Zillow and CBRE, while Smart sold a company to RealNetworks and worked in the company’s cloud group. DeSantis previously worked at the Seattle tech consulting shop LIFFFT.

The company’s Web site lists Manhattan, NYC as its location.

Hightower is working on cloud-based technologies to aggregate leasing data across property portfolios, wiping out the old system of housing that data in excel spreadsheets.

“We’re excited to be partnering with an incredible group of investors who bring deep expertise in both technology and the commercial real estate industry. The opportunity to create value for this industry is massive,” said Weber in the press release.

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