The UK has never had a better opportunity to become the global home of proptech
Monday 4th November 2019 may come to be known as a pivotal moment for British proptech. In a concrete step towards integrating public and private sector interests, the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government (MHCLG) has launched the Proptech Innovation Advisory Council, in an effort to bring together some of the leading figures in the global proptech sector.
Being named the very first member of this innovation advisory council is humbling, and I look forward to working towards achieving our common objective of helping UK proptech start-ups thrive at an international level. In bringing together the best and brightest minds in proptech globally in a strategic and coordinated way, we can begin to make the UK the global epicentre of proptech excellence I know it can be.
What I’d like to highlight more than anything with this council is the need for a long-term vision, something integral to our firm. The Ministry’s aim to champion proptech at a global level is ambitious, but we believe they understand that such a mission requires private and public collaboration.
The Council to propel the UK proptech start-up ecosystem forward
As shared last month, one of the primary goals of this coordinated effort is to address serious challenges in the UK’s real estate sector with digital solutions. This encompasses everything from finding the most appropriate brownfield sites for development to making sure local housing associations, real estate firms, and property developers have access to the tools they need to future-proof their organisations in the context of an increasingly digital world.
The traditional real estate industry cannot do this without connectivity and access to the best and brightest proptech startups. At Pi Labs, we have worked hard over the years to help break down the barriers between property and tech and establish ourselves as the gateway between these two worlds. Just as a young entrepreneur needs a steady flow of capital and customers to thrive, so too does the traditional sector require digital solutions to deliver on their commercial objectives. A key role of the Council should be to listen to both sides of the equation and provide clear recommendations and advice to the Ministry. It is also critical for the Council to look outside at the wider proptech ecosystem in Europe and globally, enabling an international exchange of ideas and best practices.
Eventually, we expect this Council will include an additional 6–7 members from different stakeholder groups, including Government, the Proptech sector, and traditional real estate. We’re open to searching both domestically and internationally for the right team members to ensure we stick to our goal of being an outward-looking Council, one that can both bring great ideas from around the world to the UK and help domestic Proptech startups scale globally.
What this Council should become
Proptech does not exist in a vacuum, nor should it. Whilst it is still very much early days, I envisage dialogue opening up with other ministerial departments. For example, this council could work closely with the Cabinet Office’s Geospatial Commission to make sure cutting-edge proptech startups have access to geospatial data to build new products and services for the benefit of citizens and businesses.
One of the other areas to explore is whether the Government can create a proptech sandbox which would enable proptech startups to access data and trial products in Government buildings in a user-friendly, low-regulation environment. There is no better way to promote proptech than for the Government to be an end-user in their own sizeable property portfolio.
This is also an excellent opportunity to bring much needed academic insight into the fold. We have some of the world’s leading universities right on our doorstep, yet both the private and public sector can do better at leveraging, in a coordinated way, some of the proptech thought leadership that is starting to come out of our top universities.
Take UCL for example, which houses real estate experts in its Bartlett Institute as well as a formidable Innovation and Enterprise team that generates solutions from burgeoning ideas and nascent technology. With Oxford and Cambridge a mere stone’s throw away, the potential academic resources we have access to is limitless.
Proptech’s future remains bright
While I am the first advisor to be onboarded I certainly will not be the last. There is a lot of work still to be done for the UK to emerge as the global epicentre of proptech. This aspiration will be shaped largely by proptech startups, the investment community, and the traditional real estate industry, but Government’s new-found interest is the fuel we need to take proptech to the next level. While I can’t reveal too much too early, I suggest watching this space for future updates from the Proptech Innovation Advisory Council.
