Six startups are bringing their biggest ideas to the stage—aiming to transform real estate businesses, solve industry pain points and take home the top prize at the National Association of REALTORS®’ Tech & Innovation 2026 Pitch Battle.
The companies will have just four minutes to make their pitch before a live audience on Nov. 7 at NAR NXT, The REALTOR® Experience, in New Orleans, followed by rapid-fire questions from a panel of industry judges. The six tech innovators will compete for a $15,000 grand prize—awarded by NAR’s investment arm, Second Century Ventures—and vie for the title of NAR’s 2026 Tech & Innovation Pitch Battle champion during the event’s eighth annual competition. The audience will also have a say—voting live to select the Crowd Favorite.
“This Pitch Battle is about more than choosing a winner—it’s about innovation that moves real estate forward,” says Sharon Love-Bates, NAR’s director of emerging technology. “These proptech companies are challenging assumptions, tackling real problems and showing us what’s possible when fresh ideas meet the needs of our industry.”
Last year, new-home platform NEO was selected by a panel of judges for the 2025 Tech & Innovation Pitch Battle prize. NEO offers a multilingual platform that partners with MLSs and associations to centralize new-construction listings and streamline connections in the new-home marketplace. The 2025 Crowd Favorite Award went to SingleKey, a tenant screening and rent-guarantee platform.
The 6 Companies Competing in 2026
Here are the six companies that will be pitching their industry solution on the stage during NAR’s NXT to compete in the 2026 Pitch Battle.
- Association Online: Founder and CEO Mike Schwab will pitch a solution designed to increase transparency around homeowner association information. Association Online connects HOA data, documents and transaction support in a nationwide platform, helping real estate professionals identify issues earlier and better navigate HOA transactions. The company was recently selected for NAR’s 2026 REACH accelerator program.
- BrokerBot: Co-founder and CEO Jeremiah Taylor will take the stage to show how BrokerBot provides brokerage-trained, branded AI assistants that answer agent questions and support onboarding, transaction coordination, CRM administration and marketing. The assistants are customized to each brokerage’s information, resources and processes, helping streamline agent support and daily tasks. The company was also recently selected for NAR’s 2026 REACH accelerator program.
- CleanSL8: Real estate pro Christian Musuraca, co-founder and president of CleanSL8, will present a solution for easing the transfer of smart home technology in a real estate transaction. CleanSL8 standardizes the turnover process for connected home systems by identifying devices, assessing transfer requirements and guiding sellers through the handover. It can create a seller-signed property record documenting the connected home systems for buyers, sellers and real estate professionals.
- KytherID: Real estate broker Stephanie Jones, founder and CEO of KytherID, will present an identity software solution that allows buyers to remain anonymous at the onset of an offer and then authorizes the release of verified information as the transaction progresses. KytherID integrates with existing real estate systems to reduce unnecessary data exposure, repeated verification and data entry errors, while also supporting fraud prevention and efforts to mitigate discriminatory practices.
- Property Shield: Co-founder and CEO Alex Fahsel will show how his tool uses AI to detect and remove fraudulent real estate listings while verifying seller identity and property ownership. The platform combines listing detection and removal with identity and property ownership verification for MLS organizations, real estate associations and property managers, while also supporting IDX compliance.
- SKLÜT: Co-founder and CEO Joshua Sklut of Sklut.io will present a solution that uses facial recognition, computer vision and edge AI to verify identities at entrances and exits across residential, commercial, institutional and event properties. Its subscription-based kiosks are designed to reduce credential administration and automate access records. SKLÜT is part of NAR’s 2026 REACH commercial cohort.
Judging this year’s Pitch Battle competition will be Emily Girard, CEO of Unlock MLS and the Austin Board of REALTORS®; Joe Schnieder, vice president and head of industry relations at Realtor.com; Suraj Rajdev, head of data and AI at Google and professor of AI at Northwestern University; and Mark Inman, vice president at Coldwell Banker Commercial TEC. Emceeing this year’s event will be Joseph Wibe, director at SingleKey and a two-time NAR NXT Pitch Battle winner (2023 as co-founder of Productive.ai and selected as Crowd Favorite in 2025 with SingleKey).
