- Launched in: June 2015
- By: Ross Nichols & Amit Shah
- USP: RoomFlick uses the right and left swipe functions made famous by dating apps such as Tinder to match people with spare rooms based on their social network. It also has a function to match people based on shared hobbies and personality traits as well as second- and third-degree connections.
- Valued at: £1m
- Get in now: With more than 10,000 users and more than 500 rooms listed six months after launch, early investors will want to move fast to avoid missing the boat. Particularly as the company is currently planning an ambitious European expansion.
- Did you know? Nichols is planning to create a ratings history to add to the app. This will allow every Roomflick user to use their score as a reference when they move on to another property. A bit like a cross between LinkedIn and a credit rating.
- Launched in: December 2015
- By: Henry Bennett and Paul Loram
- USP: A rentable tablet preloaded with all the software holiday and short-term lettings hosts need to welcome their guests and provide guides to the property and local area. Plus links to external companies including Just Eat and Addison Lee. This opens up revenue streams beyond the property itself, because for every click on one of these links through to the app, a share of the profit is delivered back to the host.
- Valued at: £2m
- Get in now: The YourWelcome team is talking to serviced apartment companies and considering opportunities in the PRS. And Airbnb is eyeing it as a potential platform partner. Need we say more?
- Did you know? Bennett and Loram were offered £1m of investment in a single morning after their graduation from proptech accelerator Pi Labs in December last year.
- Launched in: April 2015
- By: Nick Katz and Vasanth Subramanian
- USP: Splittable is a financial platform focused on helping millennial renters manage and pay their household expenses via an app and at the click of a button – with minimal maths required. With a market already crowded with start-ups, Splittable aims to help people who are already in their homes.
- Funding raised to date: £950,000
- Get in now: The team of property veterans now running this start-up are scaling the business this year. So if you don’t get in for their Series A round it could end up costing you more later.
- Did you know? Every two weeks each team member is encouraged to sleep in and take a duvet day. “The more rested the team is, the happier and more productive we are,” says Katz.
- Launched in: January 2014
- By: Tushar Agarwal, Tom Watson and Rohan Silva
- USP: An online marketplace to find, rent and share flexible office space for SMEs in London. Journey from search and discovery to lead qualification, viewings to rental payments, deposits and legal.
- Funding raised to date: £500,000 in September 2014. Current investors include Entrepreneur First, Seedcamp, James Caan (Dragons Den), Spire Ventures
(Pi Labs), Brett Akker (Streetcar, Lovespace), Jonathan Galore (Wealthfront, Wonga), Jackson Hull (OneFineStay, Student.com). - Get in now: Just as WeWork gave serviced offices a millennial makeover and grew to a valuation of $10bn, Hubble is doing the same for commercial property brokerage.
- Did you know? The name Hubble is not taken from the telescope in this case, but from the word hub.
- Launched in: December 2015
- By: Ishaan Malhi
- USP: FCA-approved mortgage matchmaker Trussle aims to take the pain out of one of the biggest financial commitments most people will ever make. Users apply online and Trussle will research the market and manage the process, keeping customers updated via text and mobile alerts. It will also then keep an eye on the market for better deals.
- Funding raised to date: £1.1m
- Get in now: HSBC said at the end of last year that one in two mortgage holders are losing £4,000 each year by not switching to better deals – a total cost of £29bn. If Trussle’s claims that it can fix this come to fruition, everyone is going to want to get in on the action.
- Did you know? Trussle was born in and grew to four months at the Pret a Manger on Baker Street.
Proptech: an investor’s guide
Juliette Morgan, Head of property, Tech City, and partner, Cushman & Wakefield
There is a lot of buzz around tech for property at the moment. $1.5bn (£1bn) of investment was ploughed into the sector in 2015 – the highest the figure has ever been.
The emergence of tech accelerators – programmes where cohorts of young start-ups are taken on to be nurtured, mentored and, hopefully, financially backed – represents a movement to incubate and accelerate technology for the property sector. And the introduction of Europe’s first proptech accelerator Pi Labs in London in 2014 put the UK capital at the forefront of the crusade.
Before Pi Labs Fund 1 was established in 2015 there were no dedicated specialist proptech investment funds in London. In 2016 there are three rumoured to be in the offing. And if these come to fruition, it means that a whole new asset class is being unlocked in our city.
But what does the investment case look like? Risky – yes. But the returns can be massive in this space. The obvious exit that everyone knows about is Zoopla for £1bn. But since then, Pi Labs has birthed 10 new proptechs, all of which have gone on to receive further investment rounds and are currently tracking 7x returns.
Invariably, some will not scale and the general failure rate is assumed to be 50%, with some funds working to a 1:10 model, where 1 of 10 investments return the money for the whole fund.
Until now, investing in proptech has been the domain of generalist venture capitalists, with the most active in the space being 500 Start-ups, Accel and Qualcom. But times are changing. Look at Cushman & Wakefield’s involvement in co-establishing Pi Labs, Knight Frank in Hightower, JLL in 42 Floors, Blackstone in VTS and CBRE rumoured to be considering funds associated with them. The property sector is now investing in and supporting proptech start-ups.
And with technology affecting every aspect of leasing, management and data tracking, there has never been a better time to get in at the ground floor of a movement that is not going to go away. Early stage investment can deliver the best returns. And with the speed this sector is moving, it won’t be early for long.
