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California  + Finance  | 

California People and Company News, Week of June 5, 2026

  • Marcus & Millichap announced that Aaron Fierstein has rejoined the firm’s Los Angeles office as senior director investments. With more than 28 years of experience specializing in multifamily sales, acquisitions and 1031 exchanges, Fierstein has facilitated more than $600 million in property transactions within Southern California.  
  • Velocity Financial, Inc, a leader in investor real estate loans, has appointed Dean Thevaos as CTO. Thevaos will lead Velocity’s technology and engineering organization, with a mandate to modernize the company’s platform, deepen its product capabilities and build the operational infrastructure that supports efficient, scalable growth. 
  • Crexi, a leading commercial real estate data platform and marketplace, has launched three major data capabilities within Crexi Intelligence: zoning, tenant and traffic, expanding the platform’s ability to deliver end-to-end commercial property intelligence in a single, unified experience. With the introduction of these new data layers, Crexi Intelligence brings together ownership, transaction, zoning, tenant and location intelligence into one platform. 
  • Leap, a leading platform for building and scaling virtual power plants (VPPs), and Verantum, a leader in lifecycle asset optimization for multi-site commercial buildings, announced a strategic partnership to enable portfolios of connected buildings to generate new revenue in automated demand response and other grid services programs across the United States. The partnership will initially support leading retail chains, including Dollar Tree, at sites across California, New York and Texas, as well as in the utility service territories of Puget Sound Energy, Salt River Project and Tennessee Valley Authority. 
  • Scale, a leader in advanced onsite energy solutions, has been awarded a $4.2 million grant from the California Energy Commission for the Santa Barbara City College (SBCC) Community Resilience Hub Project. The grant, awarded through the Community Energy Reliability and Resilience Investment (CERRI) program, will help support a campus microgrid that integrates solar, battery storage, and EV charging. 
  • Zenerate, an AI-powered real estate feasibility platform, today announced a strategic partnership with Pivotal Architecture to enhance feasibility reporting services for real estate development projects. The collaboration combines Zenerate’s proprietary AI technology with Pivotal Architecture’s extensive expertise in residential, mixed-use, and commercial projects. 
Read More News Stories About: Marcus & Millichap
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About Paul Bubny

Paul Bubny serves as Senior Content Director for Connect Commercial Real Estate, a role to which he brings 16-plus years’ experience covering the commercial real estate industry and 30-plus years in business-to-business journalism. In this capacity, he oversees daily operations while also reporting on both local/regional markets and national trends, covering individual transactions across all property types, as well as delving into broader subject matter. He produces 7-10 daily news stories per day and works with the Connect team and clients to develop longer-form content, ranging from Q&As to thought-leadership pieces. Prior to joining Connect, Paul was Managing Editor for both Real Estate Forum and GlobeSt.com at American Lawyer Media, where he oversaw operations at both publications while also producing daily news and feature-length articles. His tenure in B2B publishing stretches back into the print era, and he has served as Editor in Chief on four national trade publications. Since 1999, Paul has volunteered as the newsletter editor of passenger rail advocacy groups (one national, one local).

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