Realestatecore
RealEstateCore is a Sweden-based non-profit consortium that develops an open-source modular ontology enabling data interoperability for property owners, technology vendors, and research institutions across the global real estate industry.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2017
- HeadquartersStockholm, Sweden
- Headcount1–10
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Realestatecore does
RealEstateCore (REC) is a Sweden-registered non-profit consortium founded in 2017 that develops and maintains an open-source modular ontology for building and real estate data interoperability. The core product is a vendor-neutral data schema framework that provides standardized naming, structuring, and connection of data generated across building systems (HVAC, lighting, access control, IoT sensors), facility management, and financial/administrative domains. The ontology is published under MIT and BSD licenses in both SHACL and DTDL formats, with REST and Edge Message APIs for northbound platform integration and southbound device communication. RealEstateCore harmonizes with Brick Schema (covering equipment/sensors), ASHRAE 223P, W3C BOT, SAREF, NGSI-LD, BACnet, and Haystack, positioning itself as a bridging semantic layer rather than a competing standard.
The consortium serves three primary member segments: property owners and real estate companies (e.g., Vasakronan, Akademiska Hus, Willhem, Hufvudstaden, Castellum, Skanska), technology vendors and software developers building smart building solutions (Microsoft, ProptechOS, Acuity Brands, Fagerhult, Zumtobel), and research institutions (RISE, Jönköping University, KTH). Strategic partnerships with Brick Schema, FIWARE Foundation (smart cities), VBIS (asset classification), and lighting OEMs anchor the ecosystem. Product extensions such as the October 2025 Lighting Domain Extension and developer tools (SHACL2DTDL, DTDL2OAS, DTDL2MD converters, Home Assistant configurations) expand the technical surface.
The business model is consortium-driven and non-commercial. Revenue comes primarily from corporate membership fees (€1,000/year for organizations under €10M revenue, €2,000/year for larger organizations; free for individuals) and an ecosystem certification program where certified vendors (ProptechOS, Cervum, RISE) validate applications against RealEstateCore specifications. The core ontology is distributed free of charge via GitHub, with distribution amplified through embedment in commercial platforms (Azure Digital Twins, ProptechOS, WillowTwin) and regional ambassador members. Marketing relies on community channels (LinkedIn, GitHub, Gitter), annual Brick-RECcon conferences (200+ attendees), and thought leadership content such as the "ROI of Open Standards" white paper.
Realestatecore firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Realestatecore
- Legal name
- RealEstateCore Consortium
- Website
- https://realestatecore.io
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2017
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 1–10 employees
- Short description
- RealEstateCore is a Sweden-based non-profit consortium that develops an open-source modular ontology enabling data interoperability for property owners, technology vendors, and research institutions across the global real estate industry.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Where Realestatecore is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Stockholm
- HQ country
- Sweden
- HQ region
- Europe
Offices1 record
Markets served
Realestatecore business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Operations
Revenue model
- Consortium Membership Fees: RealEstateCore is a non-profit consortium registered in Sweden. Corporate membership fees fund outreach activities, conferences, web development, and travel costs for developers. Individual membership is free. Membership provides opportunity to participate in technical committees and influence development direction.
- Ecosystem Certification: A certification program for companies providing applications based on the RealEstateCore API. Certifiers (ProptechOS AB, Cervum AB, RISE AB) validate that applications comply with RealEstateCore specifications. The certification creates trust in the ecosystem and enables vendors to use the RealEstateCore badge.
- Open Source Distribution: The core ontology is published as open source under MIT and BSD licenses, freely accessible for commercial use by property owners, suppliers, and integrators. This drives ecosystem adoption without direct licensing revenue.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Annual | Individual membership - free access to consortium participation |
| Subscription | Annual | Small organization membership |
| Subscription | Annual | Large organization membership |
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels4 records
Marketing channels8 records
Realestatecore product offering
Product offeringCore offering
RealEstateCore develops and maintains an open-source, vendor-neutral modular ontology for describing buildings, spaces, equipment, and IoT data points in the real estate industry. The offering includes the ontology itself, a REST API and an Edge Message API for data exchange, and a certification program that validates vendors and products as compliant with the specification.
Product overview
RealEstateCore is an open-source ontology and data standard for the real estate industry, providing a common semantic framework for building data. The portfolio consists of the core RealEstateCore Ontology (available in both DTDL and SHACL formats), supporting APIs (REST API for northbound integration and Edge Message API for southbound device communication), developer tools (SHACL2DTDL, DTDL2OAS, DTDL2MD converters, and Home Assistant configurations), a certification program for ecosystem partners, and community events (BrickRECcon conferences). The ontology harmonizes with Brick Schema and other standards to enable vendor-neutral interoperability across smart building systems.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- RealEstateCore Ontology An open-source, vendor-neutral modular ontology (data schema) that describes buildings, spaces, equipment, and IoT data points, intended for property owners, software vendors, and system integrators building smart-building, BMS, and digital-twin applications.
- RealEstateCore REST API A REST API that implements the RealEstateCore ontology for programmatic access to building, space, and equipment data, used by software developers and integrators building smart-building applications.
- RealEstateCore Edge Message API An edge message API that streams building and IoT data between on-premises systems and cloud platforms using the RealEstateCore ontology, intended for integration of building automation and IoT devices.
- RealEstateCore Certification Program A certification program operated by the consortium that validates vendors and their products as compliant with the RealEstateCore ontology and APIs, providing a recognized interoperability mark to enterprise real estate buyers.
Quantifiable outcome
- 92% of sustainability reporting automated by Howard Hughes Holdings
- +3 more outcomes
Companies that use Realestatecore
Customer profileNamed customers10 records
Segments4 records
Ideal customer profiles2 records
Realestatecore technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Feature5 records
Realestatecore partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Eight partnerships are on record, tiered core and regional.
- Fagerhult Group (Organic Response)coreCo-development of Lighting domain extension for RealEstateCore ontology. Fagerhult Group is Europe's leading lighting company with 4,100+ employees in 27 countries and MSEK 8,305 turnover. The extension provides standardized semantics for luminaires, sensors, drivers, control groups, and occupancy behavior. Validated in live environment at KTH Dig-IT Lab.
- Zumtobel Group (Tridonic)coreCo-development of Lighting domain extension for RealEstateCore ontology. Tridonic is the technology company of Zumtobel Group, world-leading supplier of lighting technology headquartered in Austria. Contributed deep domain expertise covering key lighting elements for the ontology extension.
- Re-grit PartnersregionalFirst Japanese member of RealEstateCore Consortium. Re-grit Partners is a consulting firm with dedicated smart buildings MSI capability. Membership expands awareness and adoption of open data standards in Japanese market. Expected to promote REC awareness, support implementation in REC-aligned projects, and create Japanese use cases and best practices.
- KTH Dig-IT LabcoreInterdisciplinary collaborative competence center focused on reducing buildings' environmental impact through digitalization. Provided live testbed environment for validating Lighting domain extension across diverse building systems and use cases.
- Virtual Buildings Information System (VBIS)corePartnership integrates complementary standardization frameworks for data-driven smart building management. VBIS provides comprehensive asset classification structure while RealEstateCore provides modular ontology for building interactions. Combined framework supports scalable deployment of analytics, automation, energy efficiency, and facility management. Aligned with Brick Schema for vendor-neutral solutions.
- FIWARE FoundationcorePartnership to align data models and ontologies for sustainable urban environment. Enables smart buildings to act as active participants in smart platform ecosystems, contributing data on energy consumption, environmental conditions, and occupancy. Supports EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive compliance. Creates standardized framework integrating real estate into smart city platforms.
- Brick Schema ConsortiumcoreMajor harmonization effort between two leading smart building metadata standards. Equipment and sensors come from Brick Schema while spatial and real estate concerns come from RealEstateCore. Both standards leverage shared semantic web foundation enabling interoperability. The harmonization comprehensively covers building management systems, business administration, IoT, and BIM. Working group includes representatives from both standards meeting monthly.
- Microsoft CorporationcoreCorporate member since 2021. Microsoft contributes to technical committee with Senior Technical PM Karl Hammar. Azure Digital Twins platform supports RealEstateCore DTDL format. Active participant in harmonization efforts and working groups.
Scale indicators6 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights5 records
Realestatecore competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- FIWARE Foundation: FIWARE is a non-profit foundation developing NGSI-LD context brokers and smart city/IoT ontologies. REC has a formal 2024 partnership with FIWARE to align real estate data with smart city platforms — making it both a peer and a strategic partner for building-to-city interoperability.
- ProptechOS: ProptechOS is a commercial proptech platform built on top of RealEstateCore, founded by the same person (Erik Wallin). It represents the most direct commercial implementation of REC and is a key distribution channel for the standard.
- Brick Schema Consortium: Brick Schema is the closest peer — a complementary open-source metadata schema for buildings focused on equipment/sensors. Brick and REC have a formal harmonization partnership since 2022 and operate jointly at Brick-RECcon conferences; both serve the same smart building interoperability use case.
- Project Haystack: Project Haystack is the leading competing building data tagging standard in North America, focused on HVAC/equipment semantics. Haystack 4 also uses RDF-based modeling, making it the most direct competitor to REC for property owners standardizing building data.
Emerging players
- ETSI SAREF: ETSI SAREF (and SAREF4BLDG extension) is a European reference ontology for smart applications including buildings. REC aligns with SAREF where applicable, but SAREF represents an alternative standardization track under ETSI's auspices with potential EU policy backing.
- Acuity Brands (Atrius): Acuity Brands' Atrius IoT lighting platform is a corporate member of REC and contributes to the Technical Committee. It represents a major North American lighting/IoT vendor that bridges REC with commercial smart building deployments in the US market.
- W3C Building Ontology Topology (BOT): W3C BOT is a W3C Community Group standard for describing building topology, focused on spatial elements. REC explicitly bridges and complements BOT, but BOT remains an emerging alternative semantic layer for BIM-to-building data integration.
Broad incumbents
- Microsoft Azure Digital Twins: Azure Digital Twins is Microsoft's IoT/digital twin platform that natively supports REC's DTDL format. As a hyperscaler platform partner and corporate member, Azure Digital Twins is both a critical distribution vehicle and a broad incumbent in the smart building/digital twin space.
- Willow (WillowTwin): Willow is a leading commercial digital twin platform for buildings and infrastructure that implements REC. It represents a broader incumbent in smart building software that both competes with and enables REC adoption through its enterprise customer base.
- ASHRAE (BACnet / 223P): ASHRAE develops BACnet (BMS protocol) and 223P (semantic data model for buildings). As the dominant standards body for HVAC/BMS, ASHRAE represents both a partner (REC aligns with 223P) and a potential competing authority for building data semantics.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat4 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Realestatecore social profiles
Digital presenceRealestatecore financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Realestatecore leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles9 records
Realestatecore funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Realestatecore M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Realestatecore
What does Realestatecore do?
RealEstateCore develops and maintains an open-source, vendor-neutral modular ontology for describing buildings, spaces, equipment, and IoT data points in the real estate industry. The offering includes the ontology itself, a REST API and an Edge Message API for data exchange, and a certification program that validates vendors and products as compliant with the specification.
Is Realestatecore a public or private company?
Realestatecore is a private company. It is classified as nonprofit foundation owned and is currently operating.
When was Realestatecore founded?
Realestatecore was founded in 2017. It employs 1 to 10 people.
Where is Realestatecore based?
Realestatecore is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, in the Europe region.
How does Realestatecore make money?
Three revenue lines are on record. Consortium Membership Fees are the primary driver. The others are ecosystem Certification and open Source Distribution.
Who are Realestatecore's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are FIWARE Foundation, ProptechOS, Brick Schema Consortium and Project Haystack. Emerging players are ETSI SAREF, Acuity Brands (Atrius) and W3C Building Ontology Topology (BOT). Broad incumbents are Microsoft Azure Digital Twins, Willow (WillowTwin) and ASHRAE (BACnet / 223P).
Does Realestatecore have an API?
Yes. RealEstateCore publishes RESTful and message-oriented APIs intended for northbound and southbound edges of smart building platforms. The REST API specifies how clients and systems can create, read, update, and delete entities in a RealEstateCore-based smart building platform. The Edge message specification is a southbound format enabling battery- or bandwidth-constrained edge devices to communicate sensor readings, commands, alerts upward into a RealEstateCore-based platform. Developer documentation is at dev.realestatecore.io/docs/API/REST.