Clelia Peters

Warburg Realty; MetaProp

Clelia Warburg Peters is president of Warburg Realty, a family-owned, private brokerage where her father, Frederick Warburg Peters, serves as CEO. In addition to her role at Warburg, Peters is co-founder of MetaProp, a New York City venture capital fund that invests exclusively in real estate technology. MetaProp started as an accelerator with a small $2.5 million fund, but they had so much deal flow that they raised money for a second $40 million fund.

MetaProp has invested in brokerage disruptor Reside, co-working alternative Spacious, Airbnb alternative WhyHotel, insurance startup Jetty, commercial appraisal firm Bowery, title company Spruce and home equity startup Irene. According to research firm PitchBook, venture investment in real estate tech firms totaled just $44.7 million nationwide in 2012. By 2017, that figure had jumped to a massive $5.7 billion.

Peters is unusual among her peers in the venture capital arena. She is one of a very small number of female partners at a venture capital fund worth more than $25 million. In addition, she is a female founding partner of a venture fund, which is rare in the industry. AllRaise found, based on data from Crunchbase and other sources, that only 170 venture capitalists (9 percent) at firms with funds larger than $25 million in the United States are women. In addition, 74 percent of U.S. firms do not have any female partners.