GreenPoint Partners in Bloomberg

GreenPoint Partners, a firm founded by Macquarie Group Ltd.’s former global real estate investment banking head Chris Green, is seeking about $1 billion for a new fund dedicated to property wagers, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The New York-based firm has begun discussing the vehicle with prospective investors, said the people, who asked not to be named because the matter is private. A GreenPoint spokesman declined to comment on fundraising efforts.

Any new vehicle would follow a separate $134 million technology fund through which GreenPoint invests in companies focused on the digital transformation of real assets, defined as real estate, infrastructure, energy and agriculture. Its backers include Canada’s Public Sector Pension Investment Board, Ivanhoe Cambridge, Goodman Group, Lendlease Corp., Greystar and Charter Hall Group, the firm said.

“The increasing pervasiveness of technology and ESG trends is pressuring real asset digitization and technology adoption to catch up to other industries,” Green said in a statement. “Combining real estate private equity and technology investing allows us to surface unique insights into the rapidly changing industry.”

GreenPoint’s technology fund counts Ryan Shmeizer as a general partner and JLL alums Eric Boothe, Rick Michaux and John Forrest as operating partners. It has backed companies including Built Technologies, OpenSpace, Fetch Package, GetHenry, Relay Payments and Snapdocs. One of its portfolio companies, Envizi, was acquired by International Business Machines Corp. in January.

“We are focused on the consequences of technology change for our portfolio and investment strategy,” said Stephane Jalbert, a managing director overseeing real estate investments in the Asia Pacific and Europe for PSP Investments.

GreenPoint has made its first real estate wager on U.K.-based Infinium Logistics, a platform that manages over 30 last-mile logistics sites in Europe and is seeking to amass a portfolio of assets valued at 500 million British pounds ($624 million). GreenPoint’s real estate investment strategy counts Alexander Cakir as a general partner.