Proptech firm BuiltAI has gained funding to develop the first AI-powered digital twin of the UK’s commercial real estate market.
BuiltAI has secured £2m in its seed round, which was led by former Apple and DataTiger executives Philipp Mohr and Puli Liyanagama and supported by MMC Ventures, Plug and Play Ventures and an Innovate UK Smart Grant from the government.
The platform aims to provide investors with financial modelling and granular street-level data insights on properties. Its goal is to create a live digital snapshot of the country’s real estate assets that can be used to virtually model investment scenarios across entire portfolios, determining a deal’s returns in 30 minutes.
The raise will go towards R&D and product growth, including furthering AI geospatial analytics and extending customer acquisition in the UK and Europe.
The company pointed to rising demand for its dataset amid the economic downturn, with buyers looking to invest in commercial buildings worth between £50-100m on the back of market uncertainty. It also seeks to address a “severe” lack of data transparency in the industry.
Deutsche Finance International and Europi Property Group are among the clients that have signed up to the platform.
BuiltAI is led by co-founders Natan Lempert, Firoz Noordeen and Jeffrey Ng. Lempert previously worked at Benson Elliot, while Noordeen is former director of Natwest Ventures. Ng was formerly chief technology officer of Benevolent AI and chief sciences officer at Founders Factory.
Lempert told EG: “On average, only 6% of real estate trades every year, which means there is a lot of sparse data. This digital twin will provide transparency to an industry that has historically been very opaque and outdated.”
He added: “We want to fundamentally alter how property investments are evaluated. Using the very latest technology, we combine financial modelling and granular data analytics to optimise deal underwriting.”
Paul Nearchou, managing director at Deutsche Finance International, said the platform allows the business to “utilise technology to improve efficiency and drive performance”, adding: “We have been using BuiltAI for the past 12 months which has helped our team capture and analyse data more effectively, enhancing our ability to spot trends and underwrite opportunities quicker.”
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