Applications Open for the ‘22 Pi Labs Growth Programme

Last June, Pi Labs marked the end of Cohort 9. In case you missed it, you
can watch our Demo Day below. We had our most international cohort to
date, with teams spanning across Canada, UK and Israel. 4 months down
the line, we’re already seeing some amazing traction. 80% of teams are
already securing their next rounds of investment!

We’ve actively started recruiting teams for our next Cohort 10 programme, which begins on 30 January 2022. Not only that, but we have also spent the last few months ideating on how to further improve our offering to founders and provide them with even more value.

One of the key trends we’ve seen over the past few years is that of later stage teams joining the programme, with the goal to penetrate the UK and Europe through Pi Lab’s network of mentors, investors, and real estate players. To keep up with this natural evolution, Pi Labs has been updating the investment terms on an almost annual basis. However, with Cohort 10, we wanted to take this up a notch and more holistically restructure the programme… and we think we’ve cracked it!

Cohort 10 officially marks the end of the Pi Labs accelerator programme, making way for the Pi Labs growth programme! This process has been much more than a simple rebranding. Over the past few months, we have overhauled everything from investment terms to mode of delivery and content. This is a whole topic by itself, and we’ll be sharing our findings on that as we start the next programme. For this post, we wanted to take the time to go over some key industries and topics that we’re actively scouting for. Although we are keen to assess anything that touches on the built environment, every year we have 2–3 key topics that we are particularly excited about. This year, they are construction, sustainability, and future of work. Below you can see our general thoughts on each of those topics and get a feel for why we’re so excited by them!

Construction

Construction Tech is a broad topic, and over the years we’ve been actively investing in the space. This year, our focus has turned specifically to managing the skilled labour shortage, as well as closing the design loop. The latter referring to feeding the operational insights of a building back to design phase, so that architects and planners can make informed sustainability decisions where the impact is the greatest.To date, we have invested in some amazing companies such as Hausbots, Propster, Conwize and Qflow.

Sustainability

ESG is a term that has almost hijacked our daily lives at Pi Labs–with the
topic being pushed from all sides of the business, including our partners,
investors, as well as the teams we come across. We actively look at the E
(environmental), S (social), and G (governance) part of ESG, and have
some specific areas that we’re looking at this year, particularly around quantifying the ROI on sustainability projects and their financial impact for
real estate companies. This is also addressed in our upcoming white paper
— due for release in November. Pi Labs portfolio companies such as Audette, Hölmetrics, Switchee, Built-ID and 720 Degrees are examples of the investment we have made in this area so far.

Future of work

This is by far the most ambiguous topic out of the three, and in a lot of cases crosses over with key aspects of construction and social sustainability. We’re currently actively looking at solutions that enable the next wave of solutions for remote/hybrid working, as well as tenant wellbeing and talent retention–a topic also discussed in the context of construction.

Even prior to COVID-19 driving this move, we were actively investing in this space and, in fact, some of our first investments at Pi Labs were with Hubble and OfficeRnD–companies that have now seen some amazing traction on the back of the pandemic and the accelerated change in the way many of us work.

As mentioned, we are actively looking at new opportunities and would
love to speak to any teams operating within the built environment at the
seed to pre-Series A stage. You can contact our investment team directly
at investment@pilabs.co.uk. We’d love to speak to you and tell you more
about how we support our founders.

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