State of the GEM 2026 (Transmission #341)
WRITTEN BY: JESSE WRIGHT
This article was written for GEM members, and has been modified slightly for a broader audience. As always, links surrounded by the ❇️ emoji indicate exclusive GEM content. If you would like to have access to all links, please consider GEM membership.
GEM remains a highly intentional community of proptech builders, operators, investors, and advisors—spanning roles, sectors, and geographies across the Built World.
Looking back on 2025, there is much to be proud of. Despite continued macro uncertainty across real estate and venture, the community stayed active, curious, and deeply engaged. We convened more in-person events than ever before, expanded Peer Circles as a core pillar of the GEM experience, and continued to prioritize high-signal conversations over scale for scale’s sake.
The essence of GEM remains unchanged: curated relationships, intellectual honesty, and long-term thinking for leaders building real, impactful businesses.
As we have done each year for the past six years, we’re sharing a transparent look at the community. Without further ado, here is The State of the GEM in 2026.
COMMUNITY SNAPSHOT
Total Members: 563
This reflects a modest year-over-year contraction, consistent with broader industry conditions. Capital remains constrained, budgets are scrutinized, and many startups are still operating in survival or consolidation mode.
As in prior years, we welcomed new members while others exited due to company shutdowns, role changes, or shifting priorities. We also conducted long overdue data audits—removing duplicate or dormant profiles as we unified member data into a centralized CRM (this also contributed to the overall membership “decrease”).
Importantly, this was a conscious year of focus rather than growth. GEM remains approximately 38% of the way to our long-term cap of 1,500 members, preserving density, trust, and signal within the network.
ROLES
The community remains unapologetically founder-led.
Founder concentration remains the defining characteristic of GEM. While we maintain healthy representation from capital, brokerage, and enterprise operators, the center of gravity remains builders actively navigating product, fundraising, and go-to-market decisions in real time.
MACRO SECTORS
Residential continues to dominate, though diversification across the Built World is steadily improving.
As Peer Circles mature, we expect deeper participation from adjacent sectors where founders benefit most from cross-disciplinary insight—not just purely residential lenses.
GEOGRAPHY
GEM remains primarily U.S.-based, with growing international participation.
Top U.S. hubs remain consistent year-over-year, anchored by:
- Bay Area
- New York
- Seattle
- Denver / Boulder
- San Diego
- Austin
- Boston
- Phoenix
- Washington, DC
These hubs continue to anchor in-person programming and serve as testing grounds for chapter-level experimentation.
DIVERSITY
Progress remains incremental and uneven—mirroring the broader industry. Both gender representation and persons of color declined slightly year-over-year. These numbers continue to inform where we focus outreach, partnerships, and programming in the year ahead.
DIVERSITY
Female: 15.45% (down from 16.34%)
Persons of Color: 22.38% (down from 23.75%)
EVENTS & CONNECTION
2025 was our most active year of in-person convening to date.
53 in-person events spanning community dinners, private residence dinners, roundtables, field trips, coworking days, lunches, breakfasts, retreats, and soirees:
32 virtual events, including Peer Circle, Group Masterminds, and The First Cut:
The emphasis remained on smaller rooms, repeat interactions, and continuity over one-off networking. Peer Circles, in particular, emerged as the most important structural evolution of GEM, shifting relationships from episodic to ongoing.
2025 REFLECTIONS
Let's briefly look back on last year's resolutions:
OTHER WINS
- GEM Ventures
- Ambassadors and Chapter Markets
- GEM 5.0 website relaunch with branded apps
- Released the GEM member center
LOOKING AHEAD
Let’s be clear: the environment is still hard. Many companies are under pressure. Fundraising remains selective. Exits are slow. Even the ones happening are often acqui-hires rather than sizable outcomes. But early signs of a thaw have emerged: capital beginning to move, operators regrouping, and conviction quietly rebuilding.
In 2026, GEM remains laser focused on its role in the industry: to connect the right people and accelerate proptech by supporting leaders through trusted peer relationships—helping make real estate, financial independence, and home ownership more accessible to consumers.
That works by getting people in the room. Whether through virtual conversations, curated dinners, or intimate retreats, our resources remain focused on creating spaces where meaningful relationships can form and compound over time.
GEM’s role in this next phase is unchanged:
- Put the right people in the room
- Create structure for honest and candid conversation
- Facilitate relationships that compound
2026 RESOLUTIONS
Expand Local Presence
- Launch three new local chapters beyond Seattle, San Francisco and New York. Denver is already well underway, with an Ambassador being added in the first part of 2026. The list of potentials include Chicago, Dallas, Austin, Phoenix, and Miami.
- Host 35 curated dinners, four soirees, and five co-working days across chapter markets.
Deepen Founder Support
- Launch three new Peer Circles focused on Pre-Seed & Seed founders and Late-Stage operators ($10M+ ARR).
- Deliver six topical Mastermind sessions tied directly to GEM essays and industry themes. ❇️The first one is next week❇️, diving into the Certainty as a Service landscape.
- Introduce Startup Bricks: practical founder resources including vetted directories, proven processes, and tactical toolkits.
Build Industry Infrastructure
- Advance GEM Ventures, with a goal of selecting two investments.
- Develop a GEM industry event curriculum to bring consistency and quality to our in-person programming.
- Launch a Proptech Media Database to support member PR, marketing, and thought leadership efforts.
Experiment with New Formats
- Pilot video-based thought leadership for GEM members—focused on insight, not noise.
- Launch and expand GEM Scholarships to widen access to the community.
- Test a full-day symposium event with breakout sessions and a featured speaker fireside chat.
Thank you for continuing to build this community with us—through your time, your honesty, and your willingness to show up.
PUSHING FORWARD
Founders with bold ideas are the ones who move this industry forward—those who keep asking what comes next, even when the answer isn’t even remotely obvious. They rarely see walls, only obstacles to work through. Immersion in that mindset compounds over time: it revitalizes people who need momentum, unlocks ideas that might otherwise stay dormant, and keeps the broader proptech ecosystem moving forward.
One of the things I value most about GEM is that it’s intentionally capped at 1,500 members. This isn’t exclusivity for its own sake—it’s about focus and integrity. GEM is built for the people who show up, participate, and genuinely want to be part of shaping the future. At this scale, relationships stay human, conversations stay honest, and the signal doesn’t get lost in the noise.
The most important evolution of GEM over the past year is Peer Circles. These groups add high-impact knowledge, strategies, and accountability to a founder’s tool belt while creating an intentional structure for deepening relationships. This isn’t networking… it’s showing up regularly and putting your true self forward. It’s being honest about what’s working and what isn’t. It’s learning alongside peers navigating similar challenges at the same altitude.
At the same time, the world is becoming more digital, more automated, and increasingly mediated by AI. That makes spaces built around real people even more critical. GEM’s closed community protects authenticity—real conversations with real humans—and our continued focus on bringing people together in person reflects a deliberate commitment to that authenticity at a time when meaningful social interaction is declining.
Dinners will always matter and remain as a core pillar of GEM engagement. They’re a powerful starting point. But retreats, longer gatherings, and shared experiences allow for deeper unpacking—professionally and personally. As we look ahead, we’re thinking about how people want to gather, what fits into their lives, and what kinds of environments best support reflection, growth, and trust. There isn’t a single right answer—and we want your input as we experiment.
To support that work locally, we’re leaning more into ambassadors—members who help anchor GEM in their cities and regions. A huge thanks to Pierre Calzadilla, Heather Harmon, and Mark Choey for stepping up to the plate. These leaders strengthen the connective tissue of the community, making it easier for relationships to form closer to home while still benefiting from a broader network.
As for the industry itself, real estate and the Built World aren’t going anywhere—but the path forward is increasingly unclear. Technology and AI are shifting the ground beneath our feet as we try to run across quicksand. In moments like this, clarity rarely comes from a single insight—it comes from perspective, relationships, and shared learning.
As GEM founder Drew Meyers puts it:
“GEM has never been about networking for optics of volume–it’s about building the connective tissue required to fulfill the reality that one relationship can and does change everything. It’s never been about being a transactional networking layer, where every conversation is an index card in your rolodex to be exploited–it’s about facilitating a safe space to go deep and from that flows organic reciprocity. It’s never been about facilitating interactions where 1+1=2–it’s about providing relationship building opportunities where 1+1=5.”
That’s what we’re pushing forward with in 2026: creating space for founders and operators to think, question, and build together, even when the future feels (increasingly) uncertain.
Now, let’s get to it.
Ready to level up in 2026? Please apply for a GEM membership.