With proptech playing an ever more prominent role in the real estate industry, the two winners of the first, European round of the MIPIM Startup Competition 2020, organised in partnership with MetaProp NYC, were announced in Paris earlier this week.
Both winners, Mayordomo Smart Point and askporter, focus on using technology to bring efficiency and effectiveness to how buildings are used and managed, and to offer a better customer service. They operate in both the commercial and residential sectors.
Curran McKay, CCO, askporter, said: “Being recognised by the MIPIM Startup Competition is a great accolade and an attribute to our unique approach.
“Large-scale property and asset management companies need scalability and efficiencies in order to grow, remain competitive and achieve profitability” – Curran McKay, askporter
“The property market is going through a considerable shift, where large-scale property and asset management companies need scalability and efficiencies in order to grow, remain competitive and achieve profitability. Our AI technology helps them achieve these goals while allowing them to deliver a better service to occupiers and businesses in any space in any place”
Since the first edition of the MIPIM PropTech Startup Competition in 2016, proptech has been evolving to become part of the holistic strategy of companies operating in the property industry. Technology is no longer seen as an add-on.
“We’re moving quickly from a user-centric design (B2B2C) to a user-centred approach (directly B2C)” – Tomas Silva, Mayordomo Smart Point.
As Tomas Selva, CEO, Mayordomo Smart Point, explains about how proptech is evolving: “What we’re seeing in proptech today is that tenants and employees are the clients. And we’re moving quickly from a user-centric design (B2B2C) to a user-centred approach (directly B2C), where the user is the client, and the user is king. Smart Point makes this transition seamlessly, focusing on users first – enabling the reception of any good and any service in a single point of a building – and opening a €2.5-trillion market opportunity to the real estate industry.”
Following their success, Mayordomo Smart Point and askporter now go on to face the winners from the other two rounds of the Competition; they will be announced at MIPIM PropTech NYC on 12-13 November and at MIPIM PropTech Asia on 25 November.
The six finalists then meet at MIPIM 2020 in Cannes on 10-13 March, when the overall winners will be decided.
About Mayordomo Smart Point (Barcelona):
- Centralised AI-powered Smart Pointsin commercial and residential buildings.
- These Smart Points use remote controlled compartments that allow occupiers to manage their chores and their deliveries easily and quickly. It’s all about convenience
- Over 200 services are available at each Smart Point, personalised to the needs and interests of each building. From receiving your supermarket orders, to pharmacy orders, and even dry cleaning your clothes.
- Everything is managed via interactive touchscreensusing an open-platform services marketplace at the Smart Point or via the Mayordomo Smart Point web application, with a one-click payment process.
- AI tracks orders and preferences to personalise interactions with users.
- Over 70% sign-up rates in buildings, average user usage of 7 times a monthand a 4.7 out of 5 satisfaction rating from users.
- Currently offering services to over 150 companies, including HP, Endesa, Bayer, CBRE, Asus and Iberdrola, with over 15,000 users.
- Reduces building management costs by freeing up reception time; positively impacts work-life balance of occupiers; and acts as a differentiator for property owners and in recruitment.
- Unique, IP-owned technologythat allows product and service providers to sell and transact with targeted customers, and offers a free, simple delivery option for all courier companies, using a remotely managed network system.
- Co-founded by Edward Hamilton(Product Development & Business Administration), Tomas Selva (Engineer & Business Development) and Mario Chisholm (Partnerships Director) in 2016 in Barcelona. Now also operating in Madrid, Northern Spain, Balearic Islands, and opening in Milan, Lisbon and Paris.
About askporter (London):
- A property management platform with an AI property assistant, ‘Porter’.
- Porter is instantly available to occupants 24/7 via any channel, from phone to SMS, to help occupants fix issues and instantly access support, information and services.
- Porter helps property and facilities managers in the commercial and residential sectors streamline their processes end-to-end via this combination of a customer-facing assistant and automated workflows or ‘activities’.
- Each activity is automatically logged and searchable, with Porter able to recommend and prioritise follow-on activities using machine learning based on previous tasks.
- Porter aims to reduce management costs by up to 80%, as well as free teams from tedious work and deliver better customer service.
- One of their clients, London-based property manager Aduvio, was able to reduce agent time on an average maintenance workflow from 35 minutes to around three minutes, representing a saving of 10x.
- The platform is being developed in consultation with the industry. askporter is currently working with seven international companies, representing over 500,000 properties and over one million people, as part of the Porter Pioneers programme.
- Google announced it will take an equity stake in askporter last December in return for funding, and technical, product and business support. This followed funding from former Dragons’ Den star James Caan and from a company backed by European venture capital company Pi Labs.
- askporter was founded by Tom Shrive and Sam Tassell in 2016, in London. Other key people: Jamie Euesden (COO), Curran McKay (CCO) and Stefan Sabev (CTO).The four other semi-finalists were:
- Dabbel (Düsseldorf): an AI management system that turns commercial buildings of over 5,000 sq m into healthy, green spaces. A Dabbel-designed sensor combines data on temperature, lighting, CO2, VOC, RH and occupancy into one sensor.
- Hello energy (Rotterdam): an energy management software that visualises energy and sustainability data to activate users of large buildings to be smart with it.
- HomeBeat.Live (Berlin): a free digital platform for multi-family buildings. An integral part of the building, the platform acts as an effective tool to protect and optimise properties and to interact with property management.
- Pinql (Paris): a digital platform focused on private residential rentals. Pinql covers the entire rental cycle, making it easier for tenants and landlords.
The first-round winners of the MIPIM PropTech Startup Competition were announced at MIPIM PropTech Europe, held in Paris on 1-2 July.
