A real estate investment firm bullish on San Francisco’s robotics boom just added another R&D building to its portfolio.
Cannae Partners (opens in new tab) this month bought 1155 Bryant St., a lab-equipped building in Showplace Square, for about $8.4 million, according to city tax records.
The firm is amassing a real estate portfolio that can cater to technology companies working on hard science, including robotics, drones, defense tech, or self-driving cars, according to cofounder Jamin Seid. Such tenants require specialized spaces with high ceilings, loading zones, above-standard power and HVAC, or other features.
“They need spaces where they’re able to design and tinker with their products,” Seid said. “There’s just not a lot of space in San Francisco where you can do that kind of work.”
In the last 10 months, Cannae has purchased two other buildings that fit that bill: 340 Bryant St. in South Beach and 790 Pennsylvania Ave. in Dogpatch. The firm is in the process of buying a fourth building and continues to hunt for other opportunities, Seid said.
“We’re trying to add to that portfolio,” he said. Specifically, Cannae is interested in buildings designated for production, distribution, and repair (PDR) use cases. “The demand for space is really accelerating right now.”
As the AI boom has poured a bonkers amount of venture capital funding into local startups, the city’s hollowed-out offices are filling back up. One month after Cannae bought 340 Bryant St. for around $10 million in December (opens in new tab), a startup that makes circuit boards, Flux AI, leased 60% of the building.
The amount of commercial space leased by robotics companies in 2026 surpassed the cumulative total between 2020 and 2025, according to JLL.
Seid and his partner, Bob Basso, launched Cannae in 2010 and have purchased more than 1.8 million square feet of Bay Area real estate. The firm is named for the Battle of Cannae in 216 B.C., when Carthaginian general Hannibal led troops to an unexpected victory against the much larger Roman army.
Mark Geisreiter and Charlie Withers from real estate firm Newmark worked with Cannae on 1155 Bryant St., which previously sold in 2020 for $18.3 million (opens in new tab) but had since been seized by its lender.
Newmark will also help Cannae fill the now-empty 30,000-square-foot building, once home to lab-grown meat company Mission Barns and, before that, vape company Juul.
Cannae hopes to find an innovative hard tech company to move in, according to Seid: “If you’re going to make a big scientific breakthrough, I’d love if it happened at one of our buildings.”