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Private company

Emporis

Logo: Emporis GmbH, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons3

German real estate data company (1996–2022)

Emporis was a real estate data mining company with headquarters in Hamburg, Germany. The company collected data and photographs of buildings worldwide, which were published in an online database from 2000 to September 2022. Emporis was acquired by CoStar Group in October 2020.2 It was founded in 1999.1 It ceased to exist in 2021.1 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1999Founded1
  • HeadquartersHamburg1
  • Websitewww.emporis.com
  • Legal formGesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung1

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Emporis was a real estate data mining company with headquarters in Hamburg, Germany. The company collected data and photographs of buildings worldwide, which were published in an online database from 2000 to September 2022.2

Corporate structure

Emporis sits at the top of its group. 1 entity, 1 country on record. Switch between the flow chart and the network, and select any entity to see its details.

  • Emporis Hamburg
    • Emporis Building Directory Owned

Built from subsidiaries, stakes and holdings from Wikidata (CC0); major holders from Schedules 13D and 13G. Each entity in the chart links to its source.

What it owns

What Emporis reports owning in its annual reports to the SEC: buildings, land and equipment, real estate and locations, investments, intangible assets and inventory, at the end of its latest fiscal year and a year before.

Stakes and holdings (Wikidata)

  • Emporis Building Directory

Things Wikidata records the company as owning, with the share when stated.1

The story

Michael Wutzke started a website about skyscrapers in Frankfurt in 1996. In 2000 he started skyscrapers.com, which was folded into Emporis in 2003.

In 2005, Emporis formed a partnership with the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), under which Emporis served as the official CTBUH high-rise buildings database until the launch of The Skyscraper Center in 2011.

In 2007, venture capital firm Neuhaus Partners and KfW Bankengruppe invested several million euros in the company. Effective 1 January 2009, the company moved its headquarters from Darmstadt to Frankfurt. In 2011, the company moved from Frankfurt to Hamburg.

On 26 October 2020, CoStar Group, Inc., based in Washington, D.C., completed its acquisition of Emporis GmbH. CoStar Group added Emporis to its portfolio of brands. The other brands included LoopNet, Apartments.com, Apartment Finder, Belbex, amongst several others.

The merger of Emporis GmbH into CoStar Group subsidiary STR, Inc's German division, STR Germany GmbH, was finalized on 27 January 2021, with Emporis GmbH's removal from the Common Register Portal of the German Federal States (German: gemeinsame Registerportal der Länder).

On 14 September 2022, the entirety of the Emporis website's original content, including the building database, articles and data regarding Emporis Skyscraper Award recipients, and corporate information, was removed.

In 2023, former editors of the Emporis website created a new website called SkyDB, a website that acts with a similar purpose.

From Wikipedia’s article on Emporis, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4

Products and brands

  • Emporis Building Directory

Listed on Wikidata.1

Subsidiaries and ownership

Owners

Also owns

  • Emporis Building Directory

From Wikidata.1

Timeline

  1. Jan 27, 2021Dissolved Dissolved1
  2. Oct 26, 2020Acquired Acquired by CoStar Group1
  3. 1999Founded Founded1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

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