Hello walter: First Build-First Venture by Drees & Sommer and The Bau Ventures Launchs in the Market
Too many phone calls. Too many emails. Too many administrative tasks. For many property management firms, this is part of everyday business. A shortage of skilled professionals, increasing regulatory requirements, and a growing number of disconnected solutions are making property management processes increasingly complex.
This is exactly where walter comes in. The new startup supports property managers as an AI employee, taking on administrative and operational tasks. Whether tenant communication, phone services, document management, or billing preparation, walter handles time-consuming routine processes and creates capacity for the tasks that require human expertise.
For Drees & Sommer, however, walter is more than just a new proptech startup. With its official market launch at the German Property Managers’ Conference in Berlin, the company marks the first venture to emerge from the Build-First approach developed jointly by The Bau Ventures and Drees & Sommer.
Under this approach, business ideas are not simply developed or financed. Instead, solutions to specific market challenges are created together with industry experts, validated at an early stage, continuously refined, and built into independent business models.
“A sustainable transformation of the real estate industry requires solutions that deliver impact quickly, provide long-term relief for the sector, and can scale effectively. walter addresses specific challenges in property management and demonstrates how a market-ready business model can be developed within a short period of time.”
Thomas Häusser, Partner, Drees & Sommer SE
The new venture was developed in close collaboration with Drees & Sommer experts and aligned throughout its development with pilot customers from the industry. The AI-powered assistant consolidates information within a single application and independently manages entire processes. Final decisions and approvals, however, always remain with human users.
“With walter, property managers are not simply getting another software solution. They are gaining an AI employee that supports their day-to-day operations.”
Christoph Wend-Erdel, Managing Director of walter
With walter, Drees & Sommer and The Bau Ventures demonstrate how industry expertise, entrepreneurial thinking, and technology can come together to create innovative solutions for the real estate sector. The market launch also marks an important milestone for the company’s venture activities: for the first time, a business idea has been successfully developed from the identification of a specific market challenge through to the establishment of an independent startup.