Derck Smits

Derck Jan Smits is a Partner at Unifore, an independent Dutch real estate investment and asset-management boutique founded in 2013 and headquartered in Amsterdam-Zuidoost. Unifore acquires, finances and manages real estate on behalf of institutional funds and private investors, operating across two arms — Unifore Real Estate and Unifore Property Finance — with roughly €800 million in assets under management and a team of about ten senior professionals averaging 25+ years in the Dutch commercial real estate market. Smits holds a law degree from Leiden University.

Smits has 21+ years of experience in the international financial industry, of which 18+ years focused on commercial real estate. He began his career in 1997 at ING Group (ING Insurance) and entered real estate in 2000 by joining WestlandUtrecht (part of ING Group), working on corporate real estate financing and leasing. In 2002 he moved to ING Real Estate Development, where he was charged with the company's international expansion.

In 2006 he left ING for ABN AMRO Bouwfonds Property Finance (later SNS Property Finance), and on behalf of SNS Property Finance relocated to Washington, D.C., where he became responsible for the restructuring and wind-down of the firm's €2.5bn+ North American real estate loan book through 2011. In 2011 he returned to the Netherlands and joined treasury-and-finance consultancy Zanders as a business associate, focusing on real estate debt advisory, restructuring and investments, before becoming a Partner at Unifore.

Note on classification: the source stub labeled Smits as an "Angel Investor" writing "Seed Round" checks. Verified public sources do not support that framing — his work is in direct commercial real estate investment, property finance and asset management, not early-stage startup / venture angel investing. The profile below reflects the verified reality.

• Invests directly in Dutch commercial real estate rather than startups — composing and managing portfolios with value-add / core+ risk-return profiles to maximize returns.
• Sector coverage spans office, retail, logistics/industrial, residential, car parks and hotels; Unifore launched a dedicated Unifore I&L unit to pursue Dutch industrial & logistics opportunities.
• Full-cycle capability: deal origination, underwriting, financing, leasing, disposition and debt advisory — combining real-estate operating expertise (Unifore Real Estate) with capital-markets/financing expertise (Unifore Property Finance).
• Serves institutional funds and private investors, and partners with external capital providers to scale portfolios (e.g., the Exporo tie-up below).