Building an AI-Native Real Estate Investment Firm - Dan Carr & Peter Weiss - Co-Founders of Alpaca Real Estate

Dan Carr and Peter Weiss, co-founders of Alpaca Real Estate, talk with Brandon Sedloff in a conversation recorded at their Aspen summit about launching an opportunistic real estate private equity fund in late 2022 and building the firm around a data and technology stack from day one. They describe cataloging roughly 1,000 transactions across a seven-stage deal pipeline in a proprietary data lake before introducing agentic AI, and explain how they approached technology adoption culturally rather than by mandate. The discussion also covers their current focus on build-to-rent townhomes and infill industrial, working with operating partners versus directly, and forward purchase structures that

1. The founders met as analysts at JP Morgan in 2011 and launched their fund in late 2022, after the Fed's rate increases created what they describe as a repricing moment in commercial real estate.
2. They built a seven-stage deal pipeline and cataloged 1,000 transactions in a proprietary data lake before deploying agentic AI.
3. They argue organic buy-in matters more than mandates when driving technology adoption inside an investment firm.
4. Their current focus is on build-to-rent townhomes and infill industrial, with forward purchase structures that shift construction risk to homebuilders while controlling land upfront.