Writer: Robyn Fadden

In February 2021, Nakisa finalized the acquisition of IMNAT Software, headquartered in Montreal, Canada. IMNAT’s core product, formerly InfoSite, is a cloud-based corporate real estate management solution. Known today as Nakisa Real Estate, the platform complements and extends Nakisa’s lease accounting product line and addresses increasing demand for global corporate real estate management software.

We spoke with IMNAT Software’s co-owner Alexis Dénommée-Godin about the platform’s evolution and how it came to be Nakisa Real Estate.

Robyn Fadden: How did corporate real estate professionals decide to create a software company?

Alexis Dénommée-Godin: IMNAT’s founder, Christian Guay, is a real estate broker, consultant, and appraiser. In the early 2000s, he was the director of real estate for a large Montreal-based company, where he managed over 6 million square feet of space across the country. He went in search of a software solution to suit his specific needs—and came up empty-handed!

So, in 2007, Christian developed InfoSite using open source technology. At first, it was only available to a limited number of National Realty clients, and it wasn’t long before he saw the need for an upgrade.

With more features and flexibility built in, we went to market thanks to Jean-François Bechard’s programming. Jean-François went on to co-own IMNAT, and I joined the team in 2010 while completing my degree in business administration, real estate, and finance.

Christian’s really been a mentor for me on both the corporate real estate and the technology ends of the business. His background in real estate tax assessment and lease auditing has resulted in these being exceptionally strong features in our software.

Our clients want to be proactive—they want to understand their data, not just manage their real estate portfolio.

Robyn: How did you position your technology in the real estate management market?

Alexis: Most of our customers manage a mix of commercial, retail, offices, and industrial real estate. We positioned the software with space users because most of their portfolio is leased, even if they own some of their properties. As tenants, they might have 100 different leases with 100 different landlords, each with a different leasing arrangement. We saw that space users needed a corporate real estate management system that was flexible enough to adapt to their particular circumstances and meet their needs.

Robyn: How did your software develop as the technology itself evolved?

Alexis: We wanted to centralize real estate information for our cutomers—put it all in one place and make it paperless, to help them be more productive. The core of the software, its multiple features, was there as soon as we went to market. Then, through discussions with customers, we learned what features needed improvement.

Robyn: What are people looking for in a corporate real estate solution today?

Alexis: Our clients want to be proactive—they want to understand their data, not just manage their real estate portfolio. Corporate real estate professionals want to leverage data analysis to make better decisions, to forecast, work with statistics, do reporting, connect with other systems. It’s all about using your information in useful, productive ways. Hands-on data management is where the future is going for any business software, not just real estate.

Robyn: Tell me about your transition to Nakisa.

Alexis: The IMNAT team joined Nakisa in January 2021. We’re all so proud of the software we’ve built over the years and it’s an honor to be recognized by a leading lease accounting brand that serves global Fortune 500 companies. We now have the opportunity to bring our software to the next level, technology-wise, thanks to Nakisa’s cloud platform, analytics, reporting, and APIs. It’s great to be able to combine our corporate real estate experience with Nakisa’s accounting expertise—the synergy between our teams is ideal, and we’re all excited about the potential for Nakisa Real Estate. Especially because of how, when integrated with Nakisa Lease Administration, we can offer a true end-to-end asset management system, from corporate real estate to Lessee and Lessor accounting.

Robyn: How does Nakisa Real Estate stand out?

Alexis: Since Nakisa Real Estate is built by and for corporate real estate professionals, the whole system is really driven by real estate logic and scenarios, and that’s something our customers really like about our software and our team. But what’s just as important is that it’s easy for anyone to use and it can handle pretty much any of our customers’ real estate scenarios.

Our corporate real estate management solution centralizes information, streamlines workflows, improves data quality, and reduces costs. We help our customers manage critical dates, cost management, data analysis, reporting, and because we integrate with other systems, we’re capable of data sharing. All of these features help companies identify their expenses, automate payments, make sure they’re not being overbilled, and reduce their risk of errors.

In general, we’re always trying to push boundaries and improve the system to help our customers manage their portfolios more efficiently. Our software is like their real estate bible—a repository of data. They open it in the morning and close it at night—all their real estate information is managed through a single solution.

Learn more about Nakisa Real Estate here.