On December 9-12,2020, EqualOcean is holding the World Innovators Meet (WIM) 2020. This year, the event's main topic is 'Technology and Innovation Connect the World.' WIM2020 gathers innovators from Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas to share their knowledge and key achievements, promoting the concept of 'Tech for Equal.'
Definition and macro background of proptech
The real estate industry, once regarded as one of the traditional industries with a low degree of digitization, is about to usher in a great-leap-forward digital upgrading thanks to the favorable policies and capital promotion of new infrastructure and smart city, market demand transformation of limited increment and refined operation of stock market, and the large-scale application of 5G, cloud computing, big data, Internet of Things, AI and other technologies. This upgrade will be based on technology, guided by refined and humanized service, and eventually form a new ecology of real estate with improved efficiency and user experience. The technology that plays an important role in promoting this process is called proptech. As the real estate industry involves a wide range, proptech also covers all aspects of the value chain in the real estate industry, such as development, circulation, operation, service and comprehensive solution.
On the one hand, the massive upsurge in dividends of traditional real estate has peaked, and the real estate industry shifts from the ear of rapid growth to the remnant era of fine operation. On the other hand, people require a higher quality of living with the improvement of consumption level. Therefore, embracing proptech possibly become an important means for real estate companies to break through the bottleneck and the main force of cultivating the second curve of enterprises in the future.
In this background，EqualOcean release Next 50 in Global Proptech:Real Estate.Through this report, proptech investors can get more knowledge of the industry and obtain the industry dynamics. Market participants can capture industry trends, identify market opportunities, and clarify their own position and development strategies. This report also sorts out core technologies of subdivision of proptech in order to provide reference for technological innovation.
Global investment and financing in proptech
From 2014 to 2019, there were more than 2,000 global investment and financing events in proptech, with a cumulative amount of over USD 20 billion. In recent years, although the growth rate of investment and financing transactions has slowed, the total amount of investment and financing has grown rapidly, with the average amount of investment and financing transactions rising.
According to the survey from EqualOcean, from 2014 to 2020, investing and financing events in proptech reached to 379, and the accumulative amount was CNY 6,2400 million. In total, investors show optimistic attitudes in Chinese proptech.
Traditional developers have been strengthening their investment in science and technology, and a significant example is Jinmao Venture Capital, an investment institute concentrating on S&T, which is established by Jinmao Capital to set up its new digital ecology in city properties. With the advantage in stockholders, it realizes a full-chain resource integration, focuses on underlying core technologies and builds an empowering investment of a new connecting mode, which is a creative attempt in business model by traditional developers, and also a vitality for the development of proptech.
Except for investment institutions, some top real estate enterprises have also actively invested in Prop. In addition to strengthening independent research, the current layout mainly involves investing in or acquiring technology companies. According to Jones Lang LaSalle, the proportion of investment in technology by Chinese real estate enterprises has showed an increasing trend. Compared with 2018, in 2020, the proportions of enterprises’ investment in technology accounting for 10%-20%, 21%-30%, and over 30% have all increased.
In general, the global investment and financing of proptech have been strengthened in recent years, which can bring opportunities for proptech enterprises to develop strongly and realize the growth effect.
Next 50 in Global Proptech: Real Estate
EqualOcean has adopted the dimensions of innovation, competitiveness and development, selected five first-level indicators such as technological innovation, profitability, capital support, market space and organizational team as well as eight second-level indicators such as patent number, capital background and market size of subdivision to analyze and quantify enterprises in proptech ecology horizontally and vertically. Finally, EqualOcean appraised and generated Next 50 in Global Proptech:Real Estate.
Technological scenario analysis in proptech
In addition，EqualOcean analyzes the direction of innovation, core technologies and specific application scenarios in five areas involved in the real estate industry（development, circulation, operation, service, comprehensive solution）.
Real estate development goes towards two innovative directions: Intelligent Construction (planning and design,construction)and smart home(new retail for home,interior visualization design,supply chain platform,smart home). The future direction of technological innovation is mainly big data, BIM, AI, cloud computing and 3D printing.
Leading enterprise in the vertical application sector of AI real estate construction industry – Xkool, as a representative enterprise in development sector, provides a full-process efficiency-improving solution, which covers analysis, design, examination and management, for real estate developers, design institutes and so on. At present, its main products include "XKool AI design cloud platform" for architectural designing, "Kuxiao AI series products" for real estate developers, and "intelligent drawing review" for governments’ review of planning and construction, etc. Its core technology and the direction of innovation covers an original architecture underlying language: ABC (AI-DRIVEN BIM on Cloud, an AI-driven cloud architecture information model) format, an exclusive AI design engine, and a high-frequency product iterative optimization.
There are three major innovation directions in real estate circulation: real estate digital display(Marketing Planning), real estate digital transaction(Sales Transaction), and real estate fintech(Loan risk management, Digital Financial Management). In the future, the big data, AI, VR/AR, block chain technology will be used, to provide safer and more efficient services, and improve the user consumption experience.
The operating tache of real estate includes two innovative directions: residential rental(Short-term-rental B&B,Long-term-rental apartment) and commercial facilities(Intelligent Work,Intelligent Stores). In the future, technological innovation includes Big Data, Internet of Things, AI, Cloud Computing and 5G.
Digitization and refined operation are the inevitable trend of the long-term-rental apartment industry. Huizhaofang creates a product system of "three infrastructure + two services". The "three infrastructure" projects provide the bottom business support for the operators of long-term rental apartments from three aspects: fintech, information technology (Quanfangtong SaaS system) and house selling platform, so as to realize the sustainable operation, digital management, online transaction and high efficiency promotion. The "two services" are supply chain service and middle and back office services，helps apartments reduce cost and increase efficiency, and effectively promotes the development of long-term rental apartment industry.
At present, the service of real estate mainly focuses on intelligent property management. Essential personnel, assets and space scheduling can be realized through intelligent access control, intelligent parking and intelligent payment. At present, the Internet of Things and AI enable information collection and feedback of massive terminals to realize.
The comprehensive solution of proptech can be applied to multiple scenarios. At present, it is mainly applied to the commercial and public real estate. In the future, the direction of technological innovation is big data, Internet of Things, AI, cloud computing and block chain.
The trend of proptech
Based on the development and application status of proptech, EqualOcean puts forward a vision for its future development.
According to EqualOcean’s analysis, proptech will help the real estate industry realize digital transformation, however, there are still obstacles. Real estate enterprises will face the challenge of lacking sufficient determination and patience to promote digital transformation; lacking experience in data governance and software-hardware synergy; ignoring the integration of technology and business in digitalization; the risks of data segmentation and privacy disclosure.
As for China, proptech industry is still in its infancy, but it is booming, and the next decade will be a golden period. On the whole, the future development of proptech around the world will turn to a full-link innovation in the following three ways. Firstly, everything is interconnected and 5G accelerates transformation of building. Secondly, integrated technology platform will improve efficiency to enter different scenarios. Finally, collaboration within and outside the industry will promote the open innovation of proptech, building new real estate ecology.
To sum up, the process of developing proptech is the process of endowing space with more power of thought and endowing human beings with more imagination. With the development of cloud computing, 5G, AI, Internet of Things, big data and other technologies, certainly a new era of proptech is coming soon.
For more details, click here：Next 50 in Global Tech: Real Estate
About WIM
Hosted by EqualOcean, the World Innovators Meet (WIM) (click to watch the online event on December 9-11, 2020) is a global event for innovators. It provides limitless opportunities to learn from and connect with the most sought-after technology pioneers.
About WIA
The World Innovation Awards (WIA) are announced at WIM to recognize game-changers across various industries and geographies. Selected by a committee of distinguished experts, entrepreneurs and investors, WIA are designed to acknowledge technology disruptors striving to make a positive impact on a global scale.