We are so thrilled that GEM Ventures finally has a public home on the internet. If you're building the future of housing or construction, don't be shy…please submit an application.

The inaugural GEM Symposium was the most impactful event we've ever produced (more on that below). You can count on additional Symposiums being added to the calendar in the coming months to bring experienced leaders into the room to have candid, open, honest conversations about the hardest parts of building companies. We have a high bar to meet, after Ben Kinney, co-founder of PLACE, joined us for an afternoon in Seattle.

--> Sign up to GEM Primer to get access to the calendar

Don't forget, we released v1 of the GEM Media Directory, a resource of trades, reporters and podcasts covering the PropTech and Real Estate industry.

— Drew Meyers

NEW MEMBERS

• Tejas Shah from Elevated Villas

MEMBER NEWS

• Tour24 launched in AppFolio Stack Marketplace. — Georgianna Oliver
• Azure Printed Homes had its grand opening of its Colorado 3D printing factory, attended by the Governor. — Gene Eidelman
• Live Near Friends launched The Friend Compound Field Guide and Custom Compounds. — Phil Levin
• ARDI via Voiceflip is now live with ARMLS. — Kurtis Cicalo
• VirtualStaging.art has been acquired. — Lakshman Mody

As always, links surrounded by the ❇️ emoji indicate exclusive GEM content. If you would like to have access to all links or attend our curated gatherings, please consider GEM membership.

TRANSMISSION RECAP
This week, Drew Meyers says ❇️what we're all thinking: residential real estate is stuck❇️. Most recently, Ben Wright talked about the power of friendship and forced presence to counteract founders being trained to sacrifice friendships.

In this Weekly Radar, we cover:

• Kicking off the GEM Symposium series with Ben Kinney.
• GEM Ventures has a public home on the internet, finally.
• How far are we from adults being willing to purchase a Tin Can-like, trusted contacts only phone?
• Proptech Weekly index is up 10.85% from the previous week.

BIZ INTEL

PROPTECH INDEX WEEKLY - AS OF 4/17/2026
By: Community Relations

Consisting of 25 stocks, the GEM Proptech Index had a combined market cap of $243.480B, an increase of 10.85% from the previous week.

The index posted its strongest week since inception, with no single catalyst driving the move; instead, a combination of softer inflation prints, declining yields, improved mortgage-rate expectations, and easing energy market volatility fueled the sector-wide rally.

The previous highest week-over-week gain occurred on 1/9/2026, when the index rose 7.29%. 

GEM UPDATES

SYMPOSIUM SUCCESS
By: Drew Meyers

I'll go so far as to say the GEM Symposium with Ben Kinney was the most impactful event we've ever done. It was not a day to talk about residential real estate. Rather, it was an off the record conversation about life, entrepreneurship, and leadership. We went deep on time management, partnerships, relationships, personal advisory circles, gratitude, and the loneliness of the finish line. Then we spent an hour in a peer-level working session talking through specific challenges founders were facing in their business or life. My personal takeaways are that Ben knows himself better than anyone I've ever spoken to, is immensely knowledgeable on all aspects of business, has mastered the art of simplicity, and has an uncanny ability to ask the right questions to drive clearer thinking. If you can get into a room with him in the future, I highly highly recommend you do so.

A huge thank you again to Ben Kinney for taking time out of his schedule to spend with us. Expect to see additional Symposium events drop on the GEM calendar later this year.

**Sign up to GEM Primer to get access to the calendar

SHINING A LIGHT ON GEM VENTURES
By: Drew Meyers 

After announcing the proptech operator-investor collective in December, we're happy to announce that we finally have a website for GEM Ventures. Plus, a wonderful LinkedIn page (please follow it!) to go along with it.

Given we are among a community of geeks obsessed with AI — the website was built using a combination of Claude (design) and Lovable (development and deployment). It's hosted using GitHub Pages. After giving Claude the text of the initial announcement as the only input, the website took less than three hours total from start to finish. The largest work item was actually refining the copy on the page. The minimal time and money investment ($27/mo for Lovable) obviously makes me wonder, why didn't we do this sooner? Alas, we can't change the past and it's live now.

If you're building the future of housing or construction, we'd love to hear from you: please submit an application.

Questions? Reach out to myself or any of the investment partners, Greg Robertson, Grier Allen, Heather Harmon, and Ryan Coon.

OUT OF THE BOX

TIN CAN AVAILABILITY
By: Drew Meyers

Started by a couple of former proptech folks (Chet Kittleson and Max Blumen from Redfin), Tincan is a "telephone club for friends to chat voice-to-voice during the no-smartphone years." Only approved contacts, controlled by parents. Quiet hours scheduling. Tens of thousands on phones have been sold, at $100 per phone.

Unwanted emails, texts, and calls are increasing by the day since they now requires zero human time—and dealing with them is not sustainable for consumers. The amount of attention in the world is finite, and it is already maxed out. That makes me wonder, how far are we from adults being willing to purchase a similar trusted contacts only phone? Or, what if Apple enables consumers to automatically turn an iPhone into a "Tin Can-like" device, completely inaccessible to marketers? If so, it also makes me wonder, would adults approve contacts from communities/networks (like GEM, for instance) on such phones?