Grosvenor has acquired a stake in spatial data company Pupil, which it will use to map a significant portion of its portfolio in London.
Pupil, which was bought for an undisclosed sum, owns brands Stak and Spec. Those products make digital twins of spaces, as well as auto-generating marketing materials.
The brands combine artificial intelligence, industrial-grade light detection and ranging scanning hardware to capture millions of points of measurement to document commercial and residential properties.
Grosvenor said it plans to map a large part of its portfolio this year using Spec and Stak. The digital footprint will include floor plans, photography, computer-aided design drawings, lease plans, site information drawings and 3D models.
James Marshall and Oliver Breach, founders of Pupil, said in a joint statement that the investment will support the business’s “continued growth and product development”.
Andy Doyle, innovation director at Grosvenor Property UK, said: “With a highly regarded and scalable model, Pupil is set to become the dominant spatial data company in the property industry.
“As a customer and investor, we’ve been impressed by the accuracy, speed and quality of the output from Pupil’s technology and how it can help us improve data-driven decision-making and property marketing for our own portfolio.”
The deal comes after Grosvenor’s UK property arm set up an alternative investment team in June, allocating £65m to back European early-stage companies that can help achieve ESG targets and enable expansion in areas such as renewable energy generation. It made its first investment in tech platform Demand Logic.
Beyond early-stage companies, Grosvenor said it will also “participate in venture capital funds which offer the opportunity to significantly accelerate market access and learning”.
Pupil has offices in London, New York, Dubai and Singapore. Its products have scanned more than 45m sq ft of real estate with a combined value of more than $50bn (£45bn).
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