Kylie Davis
Welcome to the Proptech podcast. It's Kylie Davis here and I'm delighted to be your host as we explore the brave new world where technology and real estate collide. It's so great to have you here and to share stories of innovation and opportunity across real estate, property and building services. And the aim of each episode is to introduce listeners to a Proptech innovator who is pushing the boundaries of what's possible across how we design, build, buy, sell, rent and invest in property and all of the associated behaviour and activities around that. Now, none of this would be possible without our sponsors. So a big shout out to the Direct Connect team, making moving, easy, dynamic methods, the innovators behind the forms, live and realworks forms, and the Proptech Association of Australia. Thank you for your support of the podcast.
Kylie Davis
My guest in this episode is Jennifer Harrison, a communications and PR expert with reputation edge, but most importantly, the Vice President of the Proptech Association of Australia, where she was one of the first to put up her hand and get involved in the association. Jeniffer has an extensive career in the corporate banking sector and in Fintechs, and is part of Idea Spies, which specialises in identifying emergency sorry, love. Jennifer had an extensive career in the corporate banking sector and in Fintech, and is part of Idea Spies, which specialises in identifying emerging, exciting technology. And she is one of the powerhouses behind the Proptech Awards, working on the mammoth task of finding and coordinating the judging. And in this episode, she and I together give an overview on the winners of the 2023 Proptech Awards and provide some tips and insights into why the winners won and how to create a winning entry for next year's awards.
Kylie Davis
So, with 33 winners, this is a longer than normal episode, but it's well worth the listen, so buckle up.
Kylie Davis
So, Jennifer Harrison, welcome to the Proptech Podcast.
Jennifer Harrison
Thank you so much. Kylie Davis, my absolute pleasure to be here.
Kylie Davis
And look. This is our third Prop Tech Awards. You've been integral in all of them. Tell us, about three years down the track, what stood out for you in the 2023 entries?
Jennifer Harrison
First of all, the volume of entries, so we had 153 entries in total this year. I think the second thing that stood out for me is some of the.
Kylie Davis
Awards that in previous years were a.
Jennifer Harrison
Little underloved, if I can put it that way. They're now fleshing out. So, most particularly, the established supplier category is now very full. I think the only award that didn't have anyone enter in the established supplier category was the Environment, Social and Sustainability Award, and that's probably because that was a new award this year and it just takes a bit of time for people to get these opportunities on their radar. And, look, I think that's actually a great sign of maturity and the momentum we've got at the Prop Tech Association. Obviously, our initial membership has been made up of startups and scale ups. And now three years down the track, we've actually got a large number of established suppliers that are in our ecosystem as well.
Kylie Davis
Yeah.
Kylie Davis
And we're seeing a lot of really real activity happening in that established supplier category because the last twelve months has been made. Like one of the standout things that has happened over the last twelve months has been the number of acquisitions that's happened of startups and scale ups being acquired by bigger ones, and them honing in on the technology that they don't have to broaden out their offering.
Jennifer Harrison
Yeah, absolutely. So if you look at the list of finalists in the established supplier category.
Jennifer Harrison
You have Proptrack who are part of.
Jennifer Harrison
Rea, they have made acquisitions, strategic investments in Proptex. Also on that list of finalists and winners, we have CoreLogic, they've made acquisitions in Proptex and MRI software are on that list as well. And again, they have made acquisitions of.
Kylie Davis
Prop Tech and reap it as well, also done the same. So let's just talk a little bit about the judging. Every single award had a minimum of three judges on it. And then when categories were or when the final count was quite close, they went back to a second well, when they went back to additional judges to break any ties or to break close judging. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that? Yes.
Jennifer Harrison
So we do pay a lot of time trying to match up judges. And look, I think we've had something like 60 judges involved this year, and we're incredibly grateful for them giving their time and their expertise. We do try very hard to make sure we don't allocate any judges to awards where we know in advance there is a conflict of interest and there is a very strict process in place. Any judge, for any reason at any time can recuse themselves from judging. And we did have that happen this year in just a couple of occasions. The judge felt they just knew the parties a bit too well to be independent, and we thank them also for that. I would like everyone to know we do have a very rigorous process in place. The members of the board of the Prop Tech Association are not used in the first instance as first line judges.
Jennifer Harrison
We do not get involved in that because we just don't think that's appropriate. We will get involved as second line judges or tie breakout judges, but not.
Kylie Davis
In the first in.
Kylie Davis
Yeah, and we did have a very rigorous judging process. And the way that the judging was handled was all outlined in both online in award force, like the judging points that were assigned and the questions that were asked, and they were all highly visible and transparent through our PDF that was available to download. So for anyone entering in future years, I know there's always a real that deadline, and you just want to get the job done. Because you're applying for an award, it's not sort of necessarily revenue raising activity, so you want to get it done as quickly as possible. But sometimes it really does pay to go slow by reading the criteria first, really thinking about what your entry is going to be and making sure you answer all of the questions that are outlined in the criteria before you go into the award system and start typing.
Kylie Davis
Because we could see those it was very clear from the entries which companies had or which Proptechs had spent time thinking through and really putting time and energy into their applications.
Jennifer Harrison
Yes. I think a good way to start preparing your awards entry is to take those criteria and copy and paste them into a SharePoint Word doc or a Google Doc and use those criteria as subheadings and organize your initial awards entry under those subheadings. I think the awards that are very well structured do stand out, as opposed to the awards that are just a bit of a dump of a lot of information.
Kylie Davis
Yeah.
Kylie Davis
Sorry.
Kylie Davis
Go.
Jennifer Harrison
I think the other thing is, I know sometimes it is a marketing person or a PR person who is tasked with preparing the awards entry. And I know also it's quite common that it gets sent to a founder or a CEO for approval before it's entered. I would also encourage that if you are that marketing or PR person, when you send it for approval, clearly communicate that you have spent the time looking at the criteria. Because I think the tendency is I've seen this happen. I've seen founders come in and make edits, and they have edited it, unfortunately, in a way that's not going to help them because they are treating it like a marketing exercise as opposed to like an exam. So in exam technique, you have to answer the question, not just try and put as much stuff as possible down on the page.
Jennifer Harrison
I think some of the judges gave us the feedback that they weren't actually sure what some of these Prop checks did. There were a lot of words on the page, but they just weren't sure what they did. There was a lot of marketing buz speak in there. There was a lot of best of breed, next gen, world leading, innovative, and they're like, yes, but what do you actually do?
Kylie Davis
Yeah, and look, the comment that I would make, too, is that the judges are going because the judging is independent, because we are careful to pick judges who have domain expertise, but don't necessarily know the pieces of software or the tech that they're judging, because we don't want them to have a bias. We want them to be able to assess the entry as it comes in. They don't know your tech necessarily. You are selling your tech, and the whole problem that you're solving to them as part of that judging process. And so your tech might be absolutely amazing, but if you don't articulate that clearly in the entry and in your submission, you cannot expect it doesn't matter how much better your tech is designed or structured or devbed compared to another finalist in the category. Our judges are going on what they are seeing and reading in the entry.
Kylie Davis
So that's what's being judged, not sort of some vague, oh, but my tech is better than your tech. This is not a measuring competition, people. Well, it is because it's awards.
Jennifer Harrison
Yeah, but it has to be in the entry. The judges by what you have. Again, I've come back to the exam analogy. The examiner can only give you marks based on what you wrote on the.
Kylie Davis
Exam paper and that's the first way to do it. Right? Because it is totally the first way to do it.
Jennifer Harrison
And for our judges, it's the same deal. We don't expect our judges to go to your website to try and give you extra marks or try and figure out what you do if your actual entry hasn't enabled them to understand and give you marks in the first I.
Kylie Davis
Think we did see some amazing entries. I just want to give a bit of a shout out to Dynamic Methods, who wrote the most entertaining entry I have ever read in my life. And they did win their category for their tech. Maybe if we talk about some of the winners now, Jen, and then we'll round up with some of the other stuff that we saw. So we said that data analytics and Insight was the biggest category this year, but last year it was sales and marketing. That's where that tells us to how the industry is changing. Right, there was such an influx into that AI section and data section this year.
Jennifer Harrison
Yes, and also property and Facilities Management this year again. And design build and develop the category that wasn't as busy this year as previous years was Ownership, affordability and Finance.
Kylie Davis
Yeah.
Kylie Davis
Interesting, interesting. So look, let's kick off at the very top. Our first category was consumer proptech. Winner of the Startup Award was bycloud what did you like about them?
Jennifer Harrison
Okay, so By Cloud are a new one to the Proptech Awards this year. They haven't previously featured as a finalist. I think what the judges and what I like about them, it is actually very clear the problem they solve. They are like a digital concierge that takes care of all your buying needs if you're buying a property and their model is kind of like a freemium model, you don't pay them. They make money from the partnerships with the conveyances and the building and pest inspections and the property managers that they then introduce you to, they had a very comprehensive entry. I think they used almost every word out of the word limit.
Kylie Davis
Awesome.
Jennifer Harrison
Which is probably another tip. I think the shortest entry one entry I saw was barely a page.
Kylie Davis
Right.
Jennifer Harrison
Most of the winners have used every single word in the word limit. And yes, I think also by cloud consumer is the right award for them to enter because they are a consumer facing Prop Tech solving problems for consumers. First and foremost, yes, they are a marketplace as well, in that they're bringing conveyances and building inspectors and other people in. And that I know sometimes does give people pause for thought, or they think, oh, we'll hedge our bets, we'll enter more than one award. And in our awards that doesn't work because you can't enter the same thing twice, even if you use different words. The only reason why we'll accept that you can enter twice is if you've actually got two products.
Kylie Davis
Yeah, multiple products serving different markets and different audiences or different client bases.
Jennifer Harrison
Right.
Kylie Davis
So the scale up winner in the consumer section was property director. Tell us about them now.
Jennifer Harrison
Property director. We've had them on the Prop Tech panel a while ago. Interesting. They solve for a relatively simple problem in that investors in property have a lot of paperwork. There's a lot of cash flows they need to manage. There's paperwork, there's taxes. If it's a new build property, you've got to get the quantity surveyors in and have your depreciation schedules. They manage all of that pain. And they also pull in feeds that help you calculate, for example, the value of your property. You can link up your mortgage, then you can see your equity, and you can track if you've got a certain goal around refinancing or releasing equity and buying your next property. So I think what the judges really liked about them was they've kind of stayed in their lane in terms of the problem they solve for. They haven't branched out to try to be all things to all people, and they're just hitting goals, they're just solving that problem.
Jennifer Harrison
And people love them.
Kylie Davis
Yeah.
Kylie Davis
Fantastic. Now, the winner in the established suppliers category was Move Me In, which was part of Inspect Real Estate when it entered. But then during that during the awards period, they ended up getting bought by reap it. So now part of the reap it family.
Jennifer Harrison
Yeah. Anyone? Whether you're an owner occupier or a tenant, moving time is not fun at all.
Kylie Davis
It's awful. It's like one of the worst things on the whole planet to do.
Jennifer Harrison
I know. On the Facebook group for my little suburb, there's always people requesting packing boxes and people offering packing. Like, I don't know, maybe it's like maybe we should have this situation where packing boxes kind of don't belong to anyone.
Kylie Davis
They're just a religious they should be like Japanese umbrellas.
Kylie Davis
Yes.
Jennifer Harrison
Find a packing box, find a penny, leave a penny.
Kylie Davis
Find a packing box, leave a packing box. Yeah, there's probably an app for that. There should be an app where you just take your boxes, they get picked up by the next person. It's like a community share app. Somebody build that for me, please. That's right in the awards next year.
Jennifer Harrison
Anyone who's tried to do it themselves, hiring a van on the weekend, god, kill me now. Then you've got to make sure you filled it up with petrol. If you've ever done moving using professionals, you'll never go back, I don't think, to doing it yourself. And the one stop shop. And it's technology solving a good problem for technology to solve. I think that's the other thing for Bicloud and Property director, they are solving problems that are good problems for technology to solve. There's genuine pain points and they're representing.
Kylie Davis
People or markets, consumers in the transaction who have traditionally not had a lot of power or not had a lot of ability to have had to do a lot of manual work. What I find fascinating about real estate, like residential real estate, is that if you're a renter or a buyer because you're not part of the real estate agent transaction, you don't have any power to purchase in there unless you get a buyer's agent. But that's different. It's assumed that your time is absolutely free and it can be used for anything, that there's no value to your time. And so you're prepared to give all of your time to do tasks. And I think what we're seeing now is that buyers and renters and people moving home and that are really hungry to save time because their time is valuable and they don't want to give it on packing their own boxes or scrounging the Internet to find their own reports or working out for themselves exactly what steps they have to go through.
Kylie Davis
They're looking for guidance and advice to speed that up.
Kylie Davis
Right?
Jennifer Harrison
Yeah. And their first question is there an app for that? Where's my Uber for that? And I think there are generational differences as well in that I'm not sure I want another app on my phone. I am a bit hesitant. I'm like, Do I have to download an app? I don't really want another app on my phone. My kids, however, they've got hundreds of apps on their phone. There's no issue with them at all. Downloading an app on their phone, even if it's an app that's only going to give them utility for a limited period of time, they download the app, use it, delete it later, or not.
Kylie Davis
Yeah, well, I guess they move me in helping you not just find a mover, but also connect all your utilities, connect anything that needs to be sent to your new address. Really? Comprehensive service.
Kylie Davis
Yes.
Kylie Davis
Awesome. So, next category. Environment, social and sustainability. A new category for this year, right?
Jennifer Harrison
Yes, it was a new category for this year and it was a category that we didn't have a large number of entrants this year.
Kylie Davis
But I reckon that's going to change next year, though.
Jennifer Harrison
I absolutely agree with you, especially when you see how fast things are moving in the sustainability space. Just generally in the market. Every newspaper, it seems like there's an ESG or audits are coming, laws are coming, shareholders want this, that or the rest. And look, as custodians of the built environment in the real estate industry, there's nothing more relevant. I don't think most property companies all have a net zero target by whatever it is, 2030 or a different date. And I know some teams are also moving really fast. So teams that maybe a year ago at a property company or the sustainability team might have had five people, today it's got like 30, 35 people. I think what's interesting is, because this is still relatively new, we're seeing people.
Kylie Davis
Who.
Jennifer Harrison
Aren'T necessarily there's still a lot of room for the best in class solutions still to come forward. And I think that's really exciting. And I hope actually, with our awards, that we're going to help some of those best in class solutions come forward and get a bit of recognition and get a bit of authority that they can go back into the market and say, hey, look, were the winner at the Proptech Awards.
Kylie Davis
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Kylie Davis
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Kylie Davis
Now, so the winner in this startup category, Evatat, what do they do now?
Jennifer Harrison
Evitat specialize in helping you do green and sustainable home renovation. Yes, on home renovations, which as if you know anything about the housing problems and contributions to global warming and emissions. And most of our stock in Australia is very old. There are standards and ratings for the new build. But what about all of the old stock and colleague? We're doing this podcast in July in sunny Sydney and I'm sitting here with.
Kylie Davis
Two fleeces on me too. And I've got a blanket on my knee like an old nana because I.
Jennifer Harrison
Live in a house that was built back in 1960, 1961, and, yes, it's been renovated. And the other thing I love about Evertat is I love their focus on renovations and I love the answer that can contribute to the bigger problem that the sustainability proptechs are trying to solve. But they're also global. They're not just a solution for people in Australia. They're global and they've got a stonking big vision. I might not be quoting this correctly, but I think they've set themselves a target to have positively contributed to a million home renovations by 2030.
Jennifer Harrison
I might have to fantastic.
Kylie Davis
That's fantastic.
Jennifer Harrison
But I was like, well, I love a big vision.
Kylie Davis
I love a big vision. Cecile Weldon and I've been working with or cecile's been working with the Reedy Forum on behalf of the Proptech Association. The majority of Australia's existing homes are only two star energy ratings, and that's out of seven. So there's a lot of work to do there. Now, moving right along, because I'm conscious that we have a lot of winners to talk about. The scale up category for environment, Social and Sustainability one of our favorites. Not that had anything to do with anything, but it was always lovely to see a Proptech that, you know, doing great work, win. And the room exchange.
Kylie Davis
Yes.
Jennifer Harrison
Now, the judges loved the Room Exchange, and this was an ESG. We call it social because it incorrect. And often these categories are dominated by the E, the green entries. And so I love the fact that it's a social, predominantly social. The Room Exchange does address other sustainability factors beyond social because there are benefits to the environment from people sharing houses, but in the middle of a housing affordability and rental crisis, the social element, I think, of the Room Exchange is entry stood out.
Kylie Davis
Yeah.
Kylie Davis
Awesome. And so it's an app that allows property owners to easily find someone to rent a room in their home that is a good match for them, like verified identity, so that, you know, that who they say they are and who you've got some things in common with so that you can enjoy living in a shared space with them. Right.
Jennifer Harrison
So they've developed matching algorithms that look at your personality, your preferences, your values and things of that nature.
Kylie Davis
Yeah. Awesome. Now, no established suppliers in this category, which kind of makes sense given how new the category is. So let's move on to data analytics, insights and AI. The big one, the winner in the startup category was prop Hero.
Jennifer Harrison
Yes. Now, Prop Hero were last year's winner in the consumer category.
Kylie Davis
They were.
Jennifer Harrison
And they were also the overall Prop Check of the year in the startup category last year. I think they made a smart choice in that they chose the award that gave them the best chances of being the winner for what they actually think of as their North Star. So Prop hero, one of the co founders, Michael Roger, he is a data scientist. He's a former McKinsey data scientist. The big thing that they differentiate on is their data models and their big data feeds, in that they're monitoring for up and coming locations where you're going to get the best capital gain. And they're also screening for things like gentrification crime and climate risk, which is very relevant in a lot of parts of Australia, as anyone who has experienced a fire or a flood can attest to.
Kylie Davis
Yes, very true. Now in the scale up category commercial.
Jennifer Harrison
Yes. And you know the other thing, it's wonderful to see how many of our winners this year have female founders as well.
Kylie Davis
You know what, I actually cut the data on that and in fact we know that across our members that probably about 25% of Prop techs are founded by women founders. It's around that 2020 5% and in fact 25% of winners in the awards were completely coincidentally but also positively female.
Jennifer Harrison
And when we get to it, our leader of the year is again this year a woman, which is fantastic to see as well. So yes, neighborlytics two female founders, Lucinda and Jess. And again they've picked a problem that has a lot of social angles to it. So they're using data, they're pulling data, but the output of the data is insights on the social utility of a space. And so their market primarily is councils, property developers, but they had a huge year in the last year, for example. And they're international as well. They've got global clients. So they had use cases that were just really curious, really interesting. And I think you can just see yep, this is a great solution to a great problem. So, for example, after the Melbourne Commonwealth Games or after the Sydney Olympics that we had in 2000, after the Melbourne Commonwealth Games that are coming up after the Brisbane Olympics, what do we do with all of that development afterwards?
Jennifer Harrison
To turn it into places where people really want to live, work and play. And that's the data that neighborlytics have and that's the problem that they help governments, councils and property developers to solve for.
Kylie Davis
Fantastic.
Kylie Davis
So in the established supplier, we saw Rea group their new Proptrack take home the gong. Tell us about Proptrack.
Jennifer Harrison
Yes, now this one was one I would really not have wanted to be a judge in this.
Kylie Davis
Titans, right?
Jennifer Harrison
Yes, it was a bit of a battle of the Titans putting for example, CoreLogic up against Proptrack because from I guess most people's points of view, they probably are very similar. They're data and analytics organizations. We see their people in the media talking about house prices and days on market and all those kinds of things. So Proptrack look, I don't know that I'd probably want to hazard what the differentiator there was, but congratulations to Proptrack. I think they'll be very happy with their win.
Kylie Davis
I think proptrack. I was talking to Shelly Horton from Proptrack recently, and she was saying that I think where Proptrack are getting the edge a little bit at the moment is the fact that they are seeing so much data in real time coming through the website, which they're able to add on to that base layer of data that's coming from valuer generals and from agent reports and things like that. And because Realestate.com is the biggest portal by a country mile, the immediacy of their data and the clarity that they have around how they categorize what they've seen through the site versus what's been what levels of verification, that is really providing a hell of a lot of insights very quickly out to market. So that's going to be where my guess is around what gave them the edge there. The next category, ownership, affordability and Finance.
Kylie Davis
Now the winner in the startup was downsizer, another one that we both admire a lot.
Jennifer Harrison
Yes, and I'm really stoked for downsizer this year is their year. The winner in I mean we love.
Kylie Davis
All our entries, we do love all our entries. Some of them we just get to know a bit better and it's always nice to see them pop up on the winners.
Jennifer Harrison
And I'm sure that Dean from Brick Floor who is a finalist this year and he's the winner of that category the last two years, I think he'll be very gracious and appreciate it. Is downsize this year. And look, great founders, great team and solving again, look, solving a problem that I guess not a lot of other people are trying to solve the problem of the over. Fifty s the over 55s. If you're an owner occupier, you don't want to end up homeless, you don't want to end up living with family, you don't want to end up renting. So you don't want to put your current family home on the market until you actually know for sure where your new Fair Heaven home is going to be. Now, in Australia, given our property prices, that means finding the 10% deposit to exchange the contracts and a lot of people just don't have a spare 10% of 2 million sitting around.
Jennifer Harrison
Or if they do, it's actually much better value for money to use a downsizer bond than to raid your savings and raid your super. Because of course then you've got to give up the interest and the return on that savings and that super hassle, right?
Kylie Davis
Who wants to go through the hassle of doing that?
Jennifer Harrison
And you're actually much better protected, you're much better protected using a downsizer bond than putting up your own. Just look, things can go wrong. I'm not trying to be negative but I know people sometimes when they're buying off the plan, they are worried about what happens if the property developer is delayed or what happens if the property developer goes.
Kylie Davis
Bust.
Jennifer Harrison
Well, you are much better protected using a downsizer bond than using your own money in those circumstances.
Kylie Davis
Okay? How are you better protected?
Jennifer Harrison
Because you haven't actually stumped up the yeah.
Kylie Davis
Okay, cool.
Kylie Davis
Got it.
Kylie Davis
Now in the scale up category. Real flow finance. Now, I have to offer an apology to the fellas at Real Flow Finance because we missed them accidentally off the proptech map, but we have added them in even though they've won before, right? They are a multiple winner.
Jennifer Harrison
Yeah. And so look, rooflock, they're in the financing of when you're selling a property. They work with agents, so they're kind of in that buy now, pay later suite of financing. They work with real estate agents to help real estate agents and also the people who are selling properties cover marketing costs and things of that nature. There are a few others who are solving for that problem. But look again, it's Real Flow Finance's year this year to be the winner. They've entered our awards previously.
Kylie Davis
They'Ve done quite well. Our established supplier in this category was Deposit Power. Tell us about Deposit power.
Jennifer Harrison
So Deposit Power actually are the underwriter of the downsizer bond. So I think the Deposit Power downsizer tables are going to have to keep the noise down. And look, I'm really pleased to see look, Deposit Power have joined us now as a member and they've entered and look again, I don't think I would have wanted to be a judge in that category. In the established suppliers awards, we don't tend to get the large number of awards we do in the startups and scale ups, but these are heavy hitters. These are people and businesses that have been doing what they're doing for ten years or more. And judging those is something I don't think I'd like to do. But yeah, congratulations to deposit power.
Kylie Davis
We're very grateful to our judges for taking it on. So, next set of awards, design, build and develop. Our category specially designed for construction technology, design technology, anything that is really helping that new build and building space. Our winners in the startup category were releaseme. Tell us what they do.
Jennifer Harrison
Release me. We've had them on the proptech panel again. It's interesting, they have kept their focus very pure and clean one particular problem, helping property developers release stock.
Kylie Davis
In.
Jennifer Harrison
A very fair and transparent way. There's nothing worse than going to look at a new build and the apartment that you had your heart set on, it never even made it onto the market. It's got the reserve sticker on it and you're like, well, how did that happen? Right? Who knows whom, why isn't that available for me? I'm in front of the queue, so release me. They've got some clever optimization algorithms as well to help property developers maximize their profit. And yes, it's a much fairer and more transparent and ultimately more profitable way for property developers to release properties on the market because that property I had my heart set on, I might actually be prepared to pay another 10,000, $20,000 to get it.
Kylie Davis
Yeah, we once were trying to buy off the plan. We didn't go through with it in the end because the apartment that we wanted, really wanted, suddenly became not available for reasons that we didn't know. And we got told, well, that's okay, you can have the one next door, but the one next door faced west.
Jennifer Harrison
Yes, I'm with you. And no, we want the one that faces north.
Kylie Davis
And that's right. So now the winner in the scale up category, Archistar. Now, they have been finalists three years in a row, and they won last year, too. And I want to give a call out to Archistar. Because their first year, when they entered, I remember reading their award and I remember knowing about their technology, and I gave them feedback like we've been talking about today. That look, your tech is awesome, but your award entry did not do it justice. So work harder on it next year. And then last year they did, and they took home the winning category, and they've done it again this year. So tell us a little bit about them.
Jennifer Harrison
Yeah, look, Archistar are awesome, and they're one of the biggest and most high profile proptechs we have in the Australian proptech ecosystem. If you are a property developer, they solve so many problems for you. They can help you find the sites, they can help you get the planning. They can help you actually now. They can help you with the marketing collateral. They've bought a business which is a finalist in another category where, based on all of those plans and building specs that they have helped you do, you can now just click a button and your marketing collateral will pop up now.
Kylie Davis
Fantastic. So well done, Archistar. And look, people often say to me, oh, I just don't understand what Archistar does. You don't have to bear stocklands or a developer to get value out of Archistar. If you are a smaller developer who is just looking to maximize different blocks or to understand where you should be building or developing next, like, Archistar is absolutely the tool because it means you don't need to hire gazillions of researchers trying to find the next site for you. Right?
Jennifer Harrison
Not at all. And the other thing I like about Archistar is Archistar work with a number of our other prop techs in the you know, they're pulling in and doing the integrations for you with, for example, Neighbolytics, one of our other winners.
Kylie Davis
Yeah. Awesome. Now in the established supplier plan radar. Tell us about plan, radar.
Jennifer Harrison
Yeah, so Plan Radar are an international prop tech that has entered Australia and put boots on the ground in Australia, they solve a number of problems in the construction space. For example, they've got a property and facilities solution. They've got a kind of a defects and liability solution and they're actually an Austrian business. Yeah, we've had them on the proptech panel, the one from a couple of months ago where we focused on the construction.
Kylie Davis
Fully named, but know this one.
Jennifer Harrison
The design, build and develop in previous years, it was probably a little skinny in its entrance. And I think it's in sign of maturity now of the proptech ecosystem that we now have these interesting solutions. Serving surveyors, serving architects, serving property developers, and not just serving property developers for the architectural solutions, but serving them for the construction solutions, for the occupational health and safety aspects of construction, and also serving them for the sales and marketing function at the end.
Kylie Davis
Awesome. So now coming up to some of the big awards, efficiency and optimization. This is probably the award that had the most confusion around who should enter, right? But at the end of the day, all proptechs deliver efficiency and optimization. So this category was specifically designed for back office solutions, right?
Kylie Davis
Yes.
Jennifer Harrison
So this category was for invoicing payments, CRM, profitability, data analytics, accounting trust, accounting, things of that nature. I know a number of people go, oh, we optimize for efficiency, we'll enter that one. It's not really the best strategy. And look, some of these proptechs are also, like in the conveyancing space, for example. So quite a broad base of problems they're solving for the common feature would be they're not branded consumer facing solutions, they're solutions that are selling into the accounting or legal or B to B.
Kylie Davis
Yeah, B to B. B, two B.
Kylie Davis
Efficiency solutions. Okay, so winner in the startup category, real Time conveyancer.
Jennifer Harrison
Real time conveyancer. Another female founder, Kylie Dillon, who we know very well at the Proptech Association because she chairs our WA. And, you know, look, kudos to Kylie. I think she's a great example of a founder who actually built a prop tech to solve her own problems first. And I do think there is a special source element when founders who have very deep domain knowledge and expertise build technology to solve their own problems and then realize they can commercialize that. And that is exactly Kylie Dylan's situation. She's a 30 year experienced conveyancer, saw that there were great problems to be solved.
Kylie Davis
And look, I experienced the pain firsthand.
Jennifer Harrison
Most people will know you end up calling your conveyancer five times a day, have you got that paperwork? Has the money arrived? Are we on track? And conveyances carry a lot of risk. If you look at the lifecycle of a real estate transaction, the conveyances carry all that huge risk at the end, right? If you don't get the legalities and the money flow right, everyone is in a world of pain. Great problems, lots of really great problems in there for technology to solve.
Kylie Davis
Yeah, I think Kylie's technology is really interesting as a prop tech too, because unlike other prop techs that can do an MVP launch it to market, see what's working, what the issues are and then tweak it. The legal risk involved in getting conveyancing wrong in any way has meant that her technology has had to be absolutely spot on before she took it to market. Like there was no room for, oh, well, we'll just fix that in post.
Jennifer Harrison
And moving the money as well. There are horrible stories of people having emails getting intercepted, hundreds and hundreds of.
Kylie Davis
Thousands of dollars being stolen and scammed.
Jennifer Harrison
It's not milkshake money and that's why the scammers target it.
Kylie Davis
Yeah, exactly. So, in the scale up category, Realtor, another one very well known to the real estate industry, run by Pete Matthews, currently Rei New South Wales president.
Jennifer Harrison
Yeah, and probably another example of a founder with deep domain knowledge. Pete, I think, is a 30 plus year experienced real estate agent. And again, he saw great problems for technology to solve and build his own solution.
Kylie Davis
Yeah, fantastic.
Kylie Davis
Well done, Pete and the team. And he's grown enormously and he's also very generous. Peter Matthews. So, big shout out to Peter Matthews in terms of his time and sharing what he's done as a founder, what works. A great guy. Established suppliers in the efficiency and optimization. I think this wins best and most entertaining award entry. I was going to talk to David and the team about publishing it because it was highly amusing. I read it, but also about the empower of storytelling around a great entry. Dynamic Methods won this category.
Jennifer Harrison
Yeah, I think that the storytelling is probably that extra little icing on the cake. Yes. A great way to start is answering our criteria, but at the end of the day, the judges are reading your entry, then they're reading someone else's entry, then they're reading another entry and it does all start to blur, or it can all start to blur. And look, I know a lot of our judges were extremely diligent. They took the judging in waves. Wave one, they put it away, they came back, wave two. And then a lot of them, I know, did a final triage to make sure they were absolutely fair and consistent with the way they were marking. Yes. Storytelling, the power of storytelling is wonderful.
Kylie Davis
And look, Dynamic Methods, the technology that sits behind all of the Rei forms, tech and real, works in Queensland. So, big market share very embedded in just pretty much just about every real estate transaction around the country. And some very smart tech that's constantly being rethought and innovated.
Kylie Davis
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Kylie Davis
Okay, Jen, so the next category that we're going to look at was another very big one, property and Facilities Management. In the startup category, generator with a small G one.
Jennifer Harrison
Tell us what generator with a small so generator are an app that helps to connect people who share the same space. So for example, a resident community that might have tenants, might have owner occupiers, but they might be in a strata property. And so they'll be a building manager and a building owner. So they provide a communications tool that lets people connect and they've got a couple of really interesting overlays. So they try and promote happy and healthy resident communities and they've also got insights that they generate around ESG monitoring.
Kylie Davis
Fantastic. And in the scale up, the winner was know I've recently interviewed Colmio, so I'll take this one if that's okay. So Colmio is a property management software. It's been invested in extensively by Paul Little, who was previously with Toll a long time and then went into real estate. And the guys at Colmio, most of their tech during COVID in Melbourne Lockdowns, it's a Melbourne based Prop tech and they have some of the biggest rent roles in Australia already on their tech. So they described it as jumping off out of a plane and trying to assemble parachute on the way down as they did it during COVID But everyone I speak to who uses call meo absolutely loved it as a piece of software. So well done. Comio in the established suppliers. Now this was, sorry, my internet connection is unstable. So in the established suppliers.
Kylie Davis
Jen this was a bit of a controversy because when we took it back to the judges, we had a tie. And when we took it back to the judges said, why do we need to decide? They're two very different pieces of software, one's in facilities and commercial, one is in residential. Let's offer it to both. So the winners were MRI Property Tree for our Residential Property and Facilities Management proptech of the Year and Mobile Doc. Who was the commercial winner in this space? So MRI property tree won residential Property and Facilities Management proptech of the year. They are. Look a longtime player in this space. Started out as Rockend, were purchased by MRI Software a couple of years ago, and under the leadership of David Bowie have been very active in the Proptech space, both upgrading their own technology and embracing other Prop techs out there and acquiring quite a few they've made quite a few big acquisitions.
Kylie Davis
They brought the Proptech group at the beginning of the year that all went through so great to see an established Proptech player really reinventing and invigorating itself. And then our first sort of commercial winner in the Property and Facilities management was Mobile Doc. New to the Proptech Association. But Mobile Doc actually helps property facilities managers basically monetize their dock space and manage their loading docks much more easily. So allow easily booking in space, giving you the option to do overflow in your dock space for a neighboring building if something's going on. Big events or big things happening next door where you need additional loading dock space. A really interesting piece of tech, a little bit like parking, I guess, sort of managing that sort of previously dead space. I like this solution.
Jennifer Harrison
I like the focus on that kind of maybe unloved part of a commercial premises and there are lots of really good problems for technology to solve. They're helping to eliminate congestion in neighboring street, scheduled and coordinated. That's just cheaper and more efficient. It's also better for the environment because you are reducing the incidence of trucks sitting with their engines ticking over and idling or endlessly going around and around the block. And it's better for the neighborhood communities as well. There's less impact from noise and it improves social outcomes.
Kylie Davis
Yeah, look, and you know when the couriers are going to show up, right, the guys in the building know when they need to be downstairs at the back end of the building to greet the careers or turn up with the trolleys. So well done, mobile Doc. Now the next big one, sales and marketing. Our last sort of category before we go into the big awards, our winner in the startup category was List Assist.
Kylie Davis
Yes.
Jennifer Harrison
Now, List Assist in the current reach, Australia and New Zealand, cohort they are a proptech that actually is based in New Zealand but have also gone all the way across the big pond and they've got a toe hold in the United States of America as well. So they're definitely up and coming. The problem that they're helping to solve, I love. I think if I've got this correct, they are using AI so that computers.
Kylie Davis
Can write listing descriptions based on yeah. So they're able to pull out features from the photos as well as pull together listing descriptions. So by all means you can type an address into Chat GPT and you will get a description, although you should probably edit that very carefully. But List Assist is really identifying the correct property and automating how you create copy around that. So really interesting. And then we're seeing some great tech coming out of New Zealand and often because they're coming from a smaller market, they are very globally focused from day one. Little bit like know zero. They're learning from that example. So well done. List assist. Now, our winners in the scale up for sales and marketing was Urban Au.
Kylie Davis
Yeah.
Jennifer Harrison
Now, Urban Au have a very clear focus on helping to build a two cycle build off the plan properties. They have an offering that includes they have news, they have subscription features and newsletters and I think one of the big things that Urban Au would say is they really focus on kind of democratizing the discovery process for the buyers. And there are some other prop techs that have also discovered, as we've mentioned, for example, Release Me, which is our winner in the design, build and develop space. If you are interested in buying off the plan, you've got a lot of work to do as you do when you're buying property, just generally. But the discovery process for buying something that doesn't exist yet is a bit harder than the discovery it does exist.
Kylie Davis
I live in five dock in the.
Kylie Davis
Five dock area and there's a lot of development going on in our area because we've got the metro going through. And I'm a subscriber to Urban Au. The reason I like it is that you get to find out what's coming a lot earlier than you will on the major portals. Because you're finding out from urban what's going to be developed as opposed to what's now at sales stage and looking for buyers so you can get a feeling for who the developers are that are coming into your suburb. How much is being scheduled for new builds? You can get a bigger sense of when things are going to be developed and what the landscape looks like, I guess for new builds, which is a bit patchier inside the portals because at Portal Stage they're looking for buyers, whereas you're sort of getting that heads up a lot earlier inside Urban.
Kylie Davis
So well done, Urban. Let's kick on. Last one in the established supplier category for sales and marketing and the winner was clorogic and Rita.
Jennifer Harrison
Yes, Rita is an amazing piece of AI software that takes a lot of the pain out of being a real estate agent. It optimizes your outreach program. It lets you know who you should be touching, whether by phone or email, and it gives you the suggestions as to how you should be optimizing your outreach. And it helps agents spend more time or more focused time on that particular part of their business.
Kylie Davis
Yeah.
Kylie Davis
Now Rita were a winner last year before they were purchased by CoreLogic or when they were in that process. They were still, for the period of judging last year, a scaling business. Whereas this year they were moved into the established supplier because they had the resources of CoreLogic behind them. So I think that's a great testament to what's happening in the Prop tech market at the moment, where established suppliers are identifying great tech and continuing to invest in it and keeping it at the top of their game and keeping it out there and in front of their innovation strategies. So let's look a move now onto Prop tech to watch. Now, I know this is one of your favorite categories. Jen, the winner this year was Immersive. Tell us about Immersive.
Jennifer Harrison
Yes, Immersive, marketing solution for property developers. It's interesting actually, a number of our winners this year do have a connection into the property development space.
Kylie Davis
And lots of finalists too.
Jennifer Harrison
Yeah, and Immersive basically let a property developer have a virtual display suite because a lot of times people might just want to let their fingers do the walking. They want to go shopping for that new luxury apartment from the comfort of their sofa late at night, snug it up their partner in a bottle of red wine.
Kylie Davis
Oh, that sounds dangerous way to buy a property, but I do love it. Now I want to buy my next property. Now, moving on, we had two new awards. We had a couple of new awards this year and one was Corporate Proctor of the Year. We wanted to identify entrepreneurs that were doing great work on behalf of big brands in the property space. And the winner for this one was Immersion. So different name to Immersive, but Immersion. Tell us about that one, Jen.
Jennifer Harrison
Well, yes, different name. Immersion not Immersive, but they are kind of in the same problem space. Immersion is a white label solution that is made available to property developers selling off plan residential property and they want to go direct to the consumers buying that property. And as I just referenced these days, why cut? You just put an apartment in your online shopping trolley and check out. So one of the key differentiators of the Immersion technology is they can actually take the deposit and they can actually take you to the point of doing a transaction, not just doing the browsing. You actually can add to cart and the you know, that means they've built solutions around identity verification and payments as well.
Kylie Davis
Yeah. Fantastic. Fantastic. And this was built on behalf of a consulting group or a dev group for Daycorp, which is a developer in the space, which is why it won the corporate award.
Kylie Davis
Yes.
Jennifer Harrison
And Daycorp and look, and I know a number of our members who work in the property development off the plan space know Daycorp, they're a very highly regarded isert rated property developer and an.
Kylie Davis
Innovative one as well. Yeah, well done Daycorp and Boston, who built the app for them. Now let's very quickly bust through this next bunch of awards because they are our Best at the Best awards. So our Best of the Best startup was Downsizer, our Best of the Best scale up was Archistar and our Best of the Best for established supplier was MRI software with PropertyTree. So well done. Best our Best Proptechs across the whole category of their peers. So well done. And this year we also had two new awards which were the Residential Proptech of the Year and the Commercial Proptech of the Year. And the Residential Proptech of the Year went to CoreLogic and Rita.
Kylie Davis
Yep.
Jennifer Harrison
And big night for the Rita and CoreLogic team.
Kylie Davis
It was.
Kylie Davis
And the Commercial Proptech of the Year went to neighborlytics who we talked about previously, too.
Kylie Davis
Yep.
Jennifer Harrison
And female founders, great to see look, Rita, female founder, neighborlytics, female founder. Great to see female leaders in Proptech winning.
Kylie Davis
Yeah.
Kylie Davis
And continuing with that theme, very big category this year for our Prop Tech Leader of the Year. It was won last year by Trish Mackie Smith, who is a fantastic leader in the space this year. How many Awintees did we have? About 25 or something, didn't we?
Jennifer Harrison
Yeah, there were a lot. This was a very hotly contested category. And look, it's great to see people throwing their hat in the ring. I think we've discussed that. You do learn a lot. I know everyone hopes they're going to be the winner or at least make it onto the list of the finalists, but I think you do learn a lot when you try and answer the questions and explain your why in particular. And Sarah Bell, who is our Proptech Leader of the Year this year, one of the things that stands out about her entry is she took a lot of time to articulate her why.
Kylie Davis
Yeah. Well done. Well done, Sarah. She is like the leanne pilkington of the prop tech. Like, Leanne always enters the thought leader and always wins. And Sarah's won the Proptech Leader of the Year this year for the Proptech Awards and has also won many other awards for her leadership and innovation skills. So well done, Sarah.
Kylie Davis
Now.
Kylie Davis
So that's it, Jen. I think we should probably just say a big thank you to our sponsors who made the Proptech Awards possible. We could never have done it without the support of Ashes. They have been absolutely fabulous. Stuart Dullard and Leah Peakman and the team at Ashes. So thank you from the bottom of our hearts at the Proptech Association for your belief in the awards and for making them possible. Back in what was it when we did our first one? And in between COVID we're allowed to have 60 people in the room or something. That was a very fun time. I'd also like to thank our major sponsors EasyPay Hi, D and Prop Track. Thank you so much for your support. It's been absolutely fantastic. And then we also had our individual awards sponsors uplift MRI software, reip maneuver and our community supporters stone and Chalk proptech.
Kylie Davis
Brisbane. Oh, sorry, I also forgot. Green to View and Direct Connect who are also sponsors in our environment. Social and Sustainability Awards thank you, guys. And our Community sponsors Stone and Chalk Proptech. Brisbane Reach and rewa. So thank you so much for all of your support for making the Proptech Awards possible. And, Jen, I just want to thank you, too, because the work that you have done for the Proptech Awards every year, and especially this year, has been absolutely phenomenal. And I know it takes a lot of time, and there's some big, hairy things that have to be discussed and chewed over. So thank you so much for all the work that you're doing for the Prop Tech Association. It's great to have you as Vice president.
Jennifer Harrison
Oh, thank you so much, Kylie.
Jennifer Harrison
And back at you.
Kylie Davis
Yeah, but they are great fun. And we're pre recording this, but we are looking forward to partying with everybody on July 19, so we'll see everybody there. So that was one of my partners.
Kylie Davis
In crime from the Proptech Association of Australia, jennifer Harrison, the vice President of the association, and one of its most staunchest and dedicated supporters. An enormous amount of work goes into the Proptech Awards, especially around the judging. So I did want to personally thank Jen for all her very hard work and the time that she puts into it. It's absolutely astonishing. The awards this year were absolutely fabulous. We had 350 people in the room at the Fullerton Hotel in Sydney, and the overwhelming mood was one of celebration and just joy because so many of us sit at desks and we pour our brains and our hearts into our screens and our laptops. So it was genuinely exciting to see so many people who were all going through similar journeys in Proptech. It made everyone realize that we are not alone in this craziness that we call Proptech.
Kylie Davis
And I love this quote from five time Olympic gold medal speed skater, Bonie Blair, because it sums up both the mood of the Proptech Awards with so many finalists in the room and our past twelve months. And she said, Winning doesn't always mean being first. Winning means you're doing better than you've ever done before. Isn't that awesome? So, to all the Proptech Awards 2023 finalists out there, a genuine congratulations, you were all winners, even if this year wasn't your year for the trophy. And to our winners this year, like awesome work teams, enjoy your success. Now, both Jen and I encourage everyone to think about how you prepare your entry for the 2024 Awards, because as we mentioned in this episode, it is very clear those businesses that spend time on their entries versus those that smash them out really fast, many of this year's winners were bridesmaids in previous years.
Kylie Davis
So just keep on entering and keep on refining your entry technique every year, because one day you will get there, but you cannot win if you don't enter. So we look forward to the 2024 Awards being even bigger than ever before.
Kylie Davis
Now, if you have enjoyed this episode of the Prop Tech podcast, I would love you to tell your friends or drop me a line either via email, LinkedIn, or on our Facebook page. You can follow this podcast on Spotify, Google podcasts anchor and Apple itunes. I'd like to thank my podcast producer, the fabulous Charlie Hollins, and our sponsors, direct Connect making Moving Easy, Dynamic Methods, the name behind Forms Live rei forms Live and Realworks and the Proptech Association of Australia's industry body supporting the flourishing Proptech community. Now, if you're. An Australian or a New Zealand Proptech who would like to be on the show. Drop me a line via LinkedIn or Kylie@proptechassociation.com Au. Thanks, everyone. Until next time, keep on propteching.
Kylie Davis
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Kylie Davis
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Kylie Davis
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Kylie Davis
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