Slate Asset Management has partnered with JLL to enhance a technology platform the Toronto-based alternative investment company has been using for over a decade and is now marketing to other real estate professionals.
JLL Asset Beacon is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that integrates data across asset management functions to create a real-time, end-to-end view of performance — whether it’s a single asset, a fund or an entire portfolio.
Israel-based Amir Leitersdorf and New York City-based Iri Amirav, two seasoned technology entrepreneurs who’ve worked together and founded several ventures over the past 18 years, are the co-chief executive officers of JLL Asset Beacon.
They joined JLL in 2021 when their Skyline AI firm was acquired by the global commercial real estate and investment management company for its technology portfolio.
“We see this as a step forward in redefining how asset management operates, and we believe that this partnership represents a significant leap for this industry because it’s setting a new standard of how asset managers can unlock value, drive performance and adapt to this rapidly changing market,” Leitersdorf told RENX in an interview that also included Slate co-founding partner Blair Welch.
What JLL Asset Beacon does
“Asset managers struggle with with fragmented data. It’s usually spread across different systems and different teams, and it’s making it tough to get a clear, real-time view of performance.
“Managers spend too much time on manual gathering and reconciling and validating data, and that’s a process that’s error-prone. It slows down decision-making and causes them to miss opportunities.
“JLL Asset Beacon comes to fix this by bringing all your operational, financial and lease data together in one SaaS, cloud-based platform that’s designed to make better decisions by turning this data that we’re gathering into actionable insights and driving more revenues and cutting costs.”
Leitersdorf cited spotting under-performing assets, proactively renegotiating leases, and finding opportunities for better space utilization as just a few examples of how JLL Asset Beacon can be applied.
Integration with property management systems
“Our platform integrates with the various property management systems that most asset managers use for leasing, financial modelling and ESG (environmental, social and governance) tracking,” Leitersdorf said. “We also take your actual lease agreements, which is one of the main differentiators that other platforms do not do.
“So we get all this data and create a single source of truth on this data. Whether you need granular details like lease options, termination dates or transaction level insights, or just a high-level view of your portfolio, that’s what our platform covers.
“It supports things like stacking plans, event calendars, capital tracking and document management, and it simplifies workflows for all the roles in an asset management company.”
JLL Asset Beacon’s coverage includes both equity and debt across retail, office and industrial properties. Multifamily and hotel properties will soon be covered as well.
Slate and JLL’s partnership
Slate has used JLL’s property management, brokerage and leasing services for years, and the two companies have a strong working relationship around the world.
Welch said they also share a vision that will enable this joint venture platform to accelerate their strategic priorities.
“Slate has been using it and building it for well over a decade, and we’re very proud of it,” Welch said, noting the platform has made his company more efficient and transparent to stakeholders.
“We used it proprietarily and — through working with JLL and Amir and Iri and their team, who are tech entrepreneurs and I think have the best data and tech team in commercial real estate — we can really grow this business.”
JLL’s generative artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities powered by the recently launched JLL Falcon platform — such as lease abstraction, entity resolution and natural language query functionality — will be integrated into JLL Asset Beacon to allow users to unlock the potential of AI to organize and derive insights from their proprietary data.
Leitersdorf said this will help drive increased revenues and cost reductions.
Other companies can also use the platform
Several paying customers are already using JLL Asset Beacon in Canada, the United States and Europe. There are plans to move into other markets as well.
“We charge per asset per month, so the pricing is very dynamic and can be adjusted to any size and complexity,” Leitersdorf said.
“Whether you own one building, two buildings, five buildings or 5,000 buildings, you can use this system,” Welch added. “Whether you use property management software from Yardi, MRI, Argus or Chatham — you can name thousands of them — this pulls it all into one source of truth. The system doesn’t really care what system you use.”
There are 23 people working exclusively on JLL Asset Beacon now, primarily focused on dealing with data, according to Leitersdorf.
“Beyond the 20-plus people that are the very core team, there are dozens and dozens of people that are working on additional technologies that will be incorporated into this, as well as sales and outreach people,” Leitersdorf said.
