360 views on tech #21
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Europe’s proptech players see big trends moving in their favour
Sifted.eu — Adam Green
The real estate market is one of the oldest and biggest markets of our time with more than $10.5T invested in 2020. Surprisingly, it remains one of the hardest markets to innovate, with players still relying on excels and emails. Luckily, world-wide structural changes caused by the historical events that we have been living, have allowed innovation to flourish in the brick and mortar industry.
The pandemic
The covid-19 pandemic has given a boost in the digitalisation of real estate industry. On the one hand, virtual viewing have boomed allowing customers to check out a potential space from their homes. On the other, office space matchmaker platforms have allowed workers to face the new-normal of working from home.
Raising interest rates
The raise of interest rates have made property investment startups particularly happy. The financial cost of capital led investors to flee volatile asset classes and focus on safer ones such as real estate, thus allowing property investment startups to gain a considerable amount of clients.
Environmental regulations
With the tightening of environmental regulations given by the pressing climate crisis, the real estate industry requires substantial innovation in terms of materials, data, sensors, and environmental performance. This has allowed numerous startups to work on finding greener substitutes to the current ageing building stock.
Ageing population
Europe’s ageing population has made co-living and retirement-friendly housing models necessary. This is allowing substantial innovation within developers and construction companies in order to deliver such solution on time and within budget.
Tech innovation: APIs, VR, AI and blockchain
Recent technological advancements have led to an innovation within real estate as well. Firstly, the API ecosystem has allowed different proptech softwares to come together, creating comprehensive solutions for homeowners. Secondly, VR has allowed not only digital property viewing, but also digital building designs. Thirdly, AI has made valuations and investments in real estate more optimised, given by the ability to analyse a plethora of data points daily. Finally, the usage of the blockchain has allowed to solve issues regarding ‘fractional ownership’.
Of course, these innovations are not risk-free. Particularly concerning are issues regarding valuation faultiness, which may lead property investment startups to limit themselves to markets where pricing is simple. Nonetheless, a well thought growth strategy and a product that addresses a universal issue — which in proptech is often the case — can allow European proptech startups to go global.
🔴🟠🟡 360 Capital is always aiming at supporting interesting innovations in well-established markets. It is for this very reason that we invested in portfolio companies such as Casavo, the pioneer of real-estate marketplaces, or ISAAC, a solution for the seismic protection of buildings. Have a look at our portfolio to discover many other innovative investments!
- Sequoia launches an accelerator program in both EU and US.
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- Europe needs its own alumni founder myths.
- Is Getir worth 11B?
Early Stage
- Wenelyze, Spanish solution that helps insurers and banks to automate processes, raised €1.7M from Athos Capital.
- Vendredi (🇫🇷), B2B edtech, raised a Series A of €4.4M led by Evolem Start.
- YZR, an augmented data preparation tool, raised €10.8M Series A lead by Orange e Nauta Capital.
- NeoBrain(🇫🇷), talent and skills management platform, raised a €20M Series A led by XAnge.
- Welgot (🇫🇷), no-code localization solution provider that translates websited, raised €45M Series A led by Partech.
Growth Capital
- SpaceFill, B2B on-demand warehousing marketplace, raised a €25M round led by NGP Capital.
- HeyJobs, German career opportunities matching platform, raised a €47M Series B led by Digital+.
- Omnipresent, British human resource and onboarding platform, raised a $120M Series B by Kinnevik AB.
- Sunfire, German developer and manufacturer of electrolysers, raised €195M from with Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) and Blue Earth Capital among others.
- Getir, quick commerce app, raised $768M in a Series E by Sequoia and Tiger Global among others, becoming a decacron valued $11.8B.
New funds
- Eureka! (🇮🇹) establishes a €38M tech transfer fund focused on supporting POCs.
- Stellantis announced a €300M venture capital fund.
- Katie Haun, ex-general aprtner at a16z, raises $1.5B for her new crypto fund — the largest debut fund ever by a female VC.
Check out our website for more info on 360 Capital
Any comment or feedback ? => camilla@360cap.vc
