Fifth Wall Hosts Its First Asia Proptech Conference
Fifth Wall recently hosted more than 100 people from Asia’s largest real estate corporates, investors, and tech companies for Proptech Launchpad, a two-day innovation conference in Shenzhen, China. This marked Fifth Wall’s first event in Asia and we were honored to have attendees join us from China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, and Thailand.
“Most digital transformation offices start with limited resources…start-ups need to take that into account when they try to partner with us…it’s a lot easier to get resources after you have some success” - Akina Ho (Great Eagle Holdings) during the “U.S. vs China Proptech Implementation” panel
Our objectives for this conference were to facilitate the cross-border exchange of ideas, develop and enable new relationships, and disseminate valuable knowledge. Day 1 focused on the exchange of ideas, with topics such as Why Innovation is Hard, Bringing U.S. Start-ups to China, U.S. vs China Proptech Implementation, and U.S. vs China Proptech Investing. In addition, there was a U.S. start-up showcase featuring three U.S. start-ups with ambitions to expand their presence in Asia, as well as topic-specific sessions focused on Smart Cities and Building Information Modeling (BIM), led by representatives from industry leaders such as Vanke, Cisco, Huawei, and Baidu.
“Start-ups should not try to enter China too early before they have their operations figured out…but just because you’re not ready to enter doesn’t mean you shouldn’t start thinking about it.” - Martin Li (HYPE Ventures) during the “Bringing U.S. Start-ups to China” fireside chat
In addition to the main track of panels and speakers, we also had a separate track for the 13 Chinese start-ups, selected from more than 100 applicants, that would pitch to the corporate and investor attendees the following day. This track featured a mini-bootcamp where Fifth Wall shared best practices developed through our experience facilitating start-up and corporate partnerships on How to Pitch, How to Pilot, and and How to Structure Corporate Agreements.
On Day 2, the start-ups paired with mentors who critiqued their pitch decks and provided words of advice before Pitch Day. After successful pitches from all participants and a rigorous Q&A session, the judges conferred and ultimately chose atjubo.com, a glass supply chain service platform that offers all-in-one service for immediate purchasing, cut-to-need orders, financing, and tech support, as the Grand Winner. SABA, a hospitality solutions company featuring a multi-lingual chat bot, was named the overall Runner-up, while Equota, an energy efficiency company, received Most Innovative and Audience Choice awards and First Response, an emergency response solution, received the Best Pitch award.
Thank you to all attendees, speakers, panelists, judges, and start-up presenters for joining and supporting our first event in Asia. We’re excited to continue building Fifth Wall’s presence internationally and look forward to future collaborations with new partners. If you’d like to learn more about Fifth Wall’s Asia Proptech Launchpad event and our ongoing activities in Asia, please contact Joe Wang (wangjoe@fifthwall.com).
