MRI was one of the first property management and accounting software companies on the market. Founded in 1971, the company has become one of the main software product for commercial property owners and operators. VTS is much newer to the game, founded in 2012 they grown rapidly (thanks in part to the $462 million of VC funding they have received) and are now one of the most widely used real estate transaction management platforms. When VTS first started they saw that much of the data was being held by large software firms and rallied around the idea of democratizing data through integration. MRI has also made recent changes to its strategy to create an “ecosystem” of partner products, much like Salesforce and Apple have successfully done. Now it looks like the mission of the two companies is starting to come to fruition as both have agreed to “bidirectional” integration of user data.
This move is a win for the users of both companies as now they will be able to seamlessly import data from each platform. It is also a win for both companies, as each has much bigger ambitions than just being an accounting or transaction software. MRI has been expanding their reach geographically and by asset type thanks to an acquisition binge. They snapped up Australian company PropTech Group and UK-based Springboard, and Houston born ApartmentData.com in under a year. VTS has expanded into different verticals, most notably with its acquisition of Rise Buildings, a workplace and tenant experience app for $100 million in 2021. As both companies see potential in becoming a much larger piece of the property industry’s tech stack, it will be interesting to see how they overlap and if this integration remains if and when competition heats up.