PROPTECH BY THE NUMBERS
- 189 members
- 5528 LinkedIn followers
- 1919 mailing list
- 153 award entries
- 120 award finalists
- 33 award winners
- 9 proptech panels hosted
- 13 roundtables
- 4 live networking events
- 2 government consultation
- 1 invitation to a government advisory committee
- 1 position paper
- 30 podcast interviews with members
- 8 new advisory committee members
Introduction
“Failure and invention are inseparable twins. To invent you have to experiment, and if you know in advance that it’s going to work, it’s not an experiment. ”
Scott Galloway
Every successful proptech remembers the challenge of moving from startup to scaleup. Startups are full of vision, passion and unlimited possibilities. They are fast, furious and action oriented, dependent on the energy of a handful of people with the mental agility to make them real.
Moving into scaleup mode is a very different beast. Scaling is about embracing the importance of process and structure and working within the limits of resources – whether that is time, money or both. They still require passion and energy but with a steadier hand and committed heart to the structure of the thing, not just its idea.
When you scale, there is often a period when you need to slow down to build the foundations to go faster later. Success in a scale up depends on how quickly and how well you can democratise and delegate decision rights around the vision without losing quality. It’s about formalising what you stand for, identifying what you’re good – and not good – at, and working on both strategies and tactics to bridge the gaps and still drive for excellence.
In 2023, the Proptech Association Australia continued its transition from startup to scaleup. The year has been full of highlights, and lots of experiments and we’re mindful of what needs to change to improve.
So let’s take a look at the year:
Achievements for 2023
Australian Proptech Ecosystem Map
It is a truth universally known in publishing that if you want to know exactly how wrong you are about something, you should hit publish and wait for the shouting.
And so it was with this in mind that we published the Australian Proptech Ecosystem Map in late February this year as our contribution to the Proptech BNE Australian Proptech Economic Report.
The last time that an Australian proptech map was attempted was 2019 and there were 188 solutions identified. We announced a proptech universe of 432 on LinkedIn – revealing how the ecosystem had grown 2.5 times in just four years with a plethora of new tech emerging in categories including environment, development, AI and construction.
It was a completely manual process. We merged our member database with research from REACH Australia and ProptechBNE – and then engaged a massive internet search
We knew full well that we hadn’t caught everyone. But the research commitment required to publish something ‘perfect’ was well beyond our abilities. So being good tech innovators, we did the next best thing and asked the crowd to collaborate – and it was awesome!
The post went viral around the community, and within the following month, a further 46 proptechs came forward and requested to be included in the map. This brings the current map to 478 proptechs – our most recent revision was late October – and I recently attended the Powerhousing Community Housing national conference, alerting us to a host of community housing proptech that we’d never previously considered.
We know the map is still not complete. Since publishing, there have been buy outs and investments and even more new tech launching. Should we be including products? Or just companies? So many questions to consider.
The Australian Proptech Ecosystem Map is simply a snapshot in a moment in time and one that we will update annually.
So if we did miss you as a proptech we apologise. It was an oversight, not a conspiracy, and ask that you just email us with a high quality version of your logo and we will include you in the next update. A special thank you to Kevin Williams at Core Vision for his patience with us.
Proptech Awards
More than 350 people celebrated the Proptech Awards 2023 – a new benchmark – at the Fullerton Hotel in Sydney. The Fullerton was a significant step up in terms of venue quality and the energy and vibe on the night was fantastic.
We handed out 33 major awards and recognised excellence across startup, scaling and established proptechs. It was great to see the growth in the builder and developer, ESG and data categories, recognising the importance of these areas and to see such an increase in the number of commercial and construction tech entering this year. The Proptech Leader of the Year awards were very hotly contested.
A very big thank you to MC, Peter Schravemade for keeping it all together on the night and Vice President Jennifer Harrison for her work coordinating the judges and her review that she did with me on the Proptech Podcast. (You can hear it here). And especially big thank you to our 40 plus judges who donated their time and expertise to the awards and to Sophie Cheers, who did so much of the heavy lifting coordinating the event.
Thank you too to our major sponsors Ashurst, Proptrack, HID, Uplfft, Ezypay, Direct Connect,
Green2View, Monoova, REIP, Stone & Chalk, REIWA and REACH.
In 2024, the Proptech Awards will be held on Thursday July 25 at The Fullerton in Sydney. Nominations will open in February.
Entry to the Proptech Awards is free for members of the Proptech Association and the experience of entering is highly valuable. The entry criteria have been carefully crafted to help proptechs understand the strengths and weaknesses of your proptech to date, and reflect on what you have achieved so far and where you want to go next.
It’s been gratifying to hear from entrants what it has meant to them to be announced as finalists and I’ve been especially chuffed to see both finalists and winners badges on websites and emails so I encourage everyone to take part in 2024.
Proptech Forum
Our second Proptech Forum ran with the theme Think Bigger Together and was another great success. The property industry is inundated with conferences and so we have worked hard at the PTAA to ensure we have a niche in the market, are not requiring major sponsorships to support big venue costs or compete with big event companies. To this end, the Proptech Forum is a time for proptechs to talk about proptech issues.
Some of my favourite feedback arising from this event is from the tech developers and founders who have shared with us that they feel the room is full of ‘their’ people. By our nature in proptech, we are innovators and think differently to the industries we serve and that can feel incredibly lonely and isolating at times. It is especially precious to hear from attendees that for the first time, they feel like they fit in and have a group of peers who ‘get’ them. This is the culture that we want to create.
We had more than 170 attendees with keynote presentations from Red Balloon entrepreneur and Shark Tank shark Naomi Simson, Nigel Dalton, Dr Sarah Bell from CoreLogic, John Foong and John Sun from Domain, Dr Ben Coorey from Archistar and Jessica Franks-Christiansen from Neighbourlytics. We geeked out on data, pulled apart the key ingredients for scaling and growing a thriving business, discussed funding, bootstrapping selling your business to a major player and had a crack at solving housing affordability and commercial property challenges.
Our roundtable discussions were strongly attended and covered AI, scaling a proptech, market testing, changes in privacy legislation, building the perfect API, the new energy efficiency rating system, proptech data access, better property management experiences and solving the construction crisis.
A very big thank you to our MC Peter Schravemade for keeping the day together in the face of timing challenges and our major sponsors Ashurst and Domain who brought six of their most innovative real estate clients with them as well as most of their team. Thanks to our roundtable partners on the day – CoreLogic, Data Army, Reapit, PT Blink, WeldonCo and Dynamic Methods.
A big thank you too to AJ Chand and Nathan Krisanski for stepping into the breach on the API roundtable, and to board and advisory members John Minns, Cecille Weldon, Jennifer Harrison and Carolyn Trickett for hosting sessions and to Marie-Anne Lampotang for supporting our back of house. Also thanks to Ebonnie Schravemade as the day was her and Pete’s wedding anniversary and we’re not sure hanging out with 170 proptechs was really her idea of romance, but hey, she rolled with it!
Our Proptech Forum for 2024 is scheduled for Thursday October 17 and we are very excited to have locked in our keynote speaker Steve Vamos, director, advisor and former CEO at Xero, Microsoft Australia and Apple Asia Pacific. Put it in your calendars now!
Commercial Proptech Sub Committee
This year, we were delighted to see the formalisation of our Commercial Proptech Sub Committee under the able leadership of Carolyn Trickett from JLL Spark and to incorporate their valuable feedback into both our events and membership development.
Carolyn has gathered a talented group reflecting the commercial proptech and property landscape and established a structure for meetings that we will be adopting for future subcommittees. They have also held a highly productive strategy day and we look forward to incorporating their ideas into our planning as part of the board’s own strategy day in January.
A big thank you too to subcommittee members: Lucinda Hartley – Neighbourlytics, Chris Mason – Mobile Dock, Andrew Giles – PT Blink, Tyrone Hodge – JLL, Simon Hayes – PwC, Catherine Sullivan – Telstra, Joanna Marsh – Investa, A Doyle – Asseti, Tessa Roulston – ANZ for their energy and commitment.
Proptech Panels
Our Proptech Panels are a mainstay of the Proptech Association calendar and offer three (occasionally four) proptechs to discuss a specific issue that unites them, introducing their technology and discussing industry pain points.
They are always fascinating discussions that reveal gems and they are videoed and the audio turned into a podcast, so they have long tails in terms of engagement and deliver great exposure to members who participate.
This year our topics included understanding the market landscape for 2023, construction proptech, a highlight on our startup award winners, CDR, intersections with fintech, balancing innovation and adoption, and exploring the issue of US influence on Australian proptech.
In 2024, we are looking for a volunteer to regularly host the panels. They are held on the last Tuesday of each month. We have identified some topics to kick off and have a good system in place for setting them up and promoting them.
If you are interested, please contact Mal or myself.
The Proptech Podcast
The Proptech Podcast passed 42,000 downloads this year with 30 individual proptech interviews and a further half dozen Proptech Panel audios. They are a favourite part of my month as we get to discuss new technology in detail, meet some inspiring innovators and it’s a great way to find out who is new and what pain points are being solved.
All members of the Proptech Association are eligible for an interview. Please reach out if you’ve not had an opportunity to go onto the show yet.
Other Events and Conferences
- REEDI Governance Forum
The Proptech Association is honoured to be a non-voting member for the REEDI (Residential Energy Efficiency Disclosure Initiative) Governance Forum – a collaborative project of the Commonwealth, state and territory governments to develop a national framework for the disclosure of residential energy efficiency information (energy rating for all residential property).
In this we are expertly represented by Cecille Weldon and the board is blessed to have someone with Cecille’s deep expertise in energy efficiency on our team.
With our existing residential housing stock expected to be a low 2 out of 10 star rating – the demand for future-focussed renovation and upgrade plans will be on a scale that we have not seen before. For new builds the all electric home will be the new baseline.
Accurate capture of energy efficiency and quality data is key to this initiative, and as proptechs, we are at the centre of the conversation.
In addition to representing PTAA at REEDI meetings, we hosted a Residential Property Roundtable in June with 24 highly engaged members across property management, CRMS, data and environmental and energy efficiency technology.
Open-source energy efficiency data soon to be available from CSIRO for residential and commercial buildings and the release of the National Residential Energy Efficiency Disclosure Framework document is expected between now and April 2024.
A full brief will be shared with all members next week.
- National Housing and Affordability Plan
This year we made our first federal submission to the National Housing and Affordability Plan. Big thanks to Paula Shearer who picked up the job at the last minute. We sought to identify the breadth of innovation that is occurring across proptech and the work our members are doing to reduce housing build costs and improving supply through time to market, and addressing key pain points for buyers, sellers and renters.
News, Calendars and Events
This year the Proptech Association hosted live meetups in Adelaide, Perth and Melbourne as well as our major Sydney events. They were well attended, fostered some valuable conversations and connections and were an important part of our outreach. We hope to do more in 2024.
The News and Calendar sections of our website are a valuable resource for the marketing and PR teams of every Proptech – and these are free to all members to make a submission. This year, we were pleased to see so many proptechs including us in their media send-outs and the site is now featuring new information regularly.
Our Event calendar is also free for members so we encourage everyone to share webinars, conferences or events that you’re attending or hosting.
Our goal is to create an industry asset that helps event planners identify what is on and when to avoid clashes, and to make it easier for everyone to see what to attend or sponsor.
This year we have also finally created a YouTube channel and it is now a central source to host and collate all of our videos. If you missed the Proptech Forum, our major industry speakers are all featured.
Thank You’s
A Special Thank You to Jennifer Harrison
Like all proptechs, the Proptech Association was started with the boundless energy and enthusiasm of a couple of key people – our founders. Dr Sarah Bell once described startups as needing “heroic energy”.
Once the vision was outlined, Marie-Anne Lampotang and Jennifer Harrison were the first two people to jump on board and lean in – hard and I count them as co-founders of the association.
Tonight, we farewell Jennifer Harrison who steps down from the board. Jennifer as our Vice President has worked tirelessly for the Proptech Association, finding sponsors, judges for the awards, and hosting the Proptech Panels across the past four years, sharing her deep knowledge and love of the sector and connecting us tightly to fintech and insuretech.
When we first met, she said “I know quite a lot of people, and I’d love to help.” And she has absolutely delivered.
The time commitment of being on the board of the association is considerable. And this year, family issues have obliged Jen to reconsider her priorities. We know it has been difficult for her but we are also honoured to have served with her and I am especially proud of how the board rallied around the idea of restructuring our duties to fill the void.
Jen, the success of the association as we enter our fifth year is absolutely a testimony to your hard work and commitment. Your energy and commitment has been truly heroic and we thank you.
Jen will continue her association with the association by being one of our first Ambassadors under a new program to be launched shortly.
Big Props to our Board
There are just seven board members who meet fortnightly and keep the Proptech Association running. It’s quite a commitment, even with the assistance of our member managers this year.
I’d like to especially call out Marie-Anne Lampotang as our Treasurer and Secretary who is both a rock and a powerhouse. Mal is the no-nonsense voice of reason on the board, she is practical, committed and capable and keeps our official obligations under tight control. I can rely on her sound guidance when feeling unhinged.
Big thanks too go to Peter Schravemade, director at REACH Australia who joined the board this year and slipped into the role like it was made for him. Pete is our go-to MC – he is never more comfortable than when he has a mic in his hand – and his ability to network, socialise and connect makes him an awesome ambassador for the association. Just don’t try to drink him under the table.
Cecille Weldon also deserves an enormous round of applause for her work on the REEDI forum and in representing the Proptech Association to government, the energy efficiency sector and ongoingly with the CSIRO. This year she has done all this despite the enormous personal pressure in the background including losing her father to cancer. She has dealt with it all with grace and a commitment to the higher good and constantly challenges us as a board to improve our processes and governance.
I’d also like to thank AJ Chand, founder of Instarent and now Reso, who can always be relied upon to step in. AJ saved the day both at the Proptech Forum hosting the API roundtable and in judging some of our last entries after a judge pulled out. Thanks also to John Minns, the NSW Property Services Commissioner and now also Strata Commissioner. John has kept us in the loop around NSW government changes, helped us reflect on governance issues and is the first person we turn to for advice and the occasional mediation over disputes.
I’d also like to thank Isaac Coonan, head of Proptech BNE for his generous cheerleading for the Proptech Association. It was great to collaborate on the Australian Proptech Economic Report again this year, attend their event in Brisbane, and ProptechBNE advisors were key to our judging for the awards. We look forward to more combined initiatives in 2024.
And to Sophie Cheers and Eleanor Salt who supported us as Member Managers this year and coped so beautifully with the mania that is the association.
I’d also like to thank my own team who have kept everything turning in the background. The fabulous Jill Escudero, digital marketing associate and can-do girl when it comes to everything digital, and Paula Shearer, my wingwoman, editor and writer par excellence whose cheerful ability to ‘smash out’ an edm – and this year a whitepaper at the last minute – knows seemingly no limits, and Micah Songco who has been quietly building our presence on Facebook and Instagram and is now taking over LinkedIn.
Lastly, a huge thank you to Stuart Dullard and Leah Peakman from Ashurst for their ongoing support of the Proptech Association as our major sponsor and Stone & Chalk for their practical assistance and ongoing commitment and support of the association.
Goals for 2024
Due to issues beyond our control, the board’s strategy day this year was pushed back to January 17, so while I have a head full of ideas about what we would like to achieve in 2024, we will make a separate announcement after it has been held and launch our official program formally.
It is fair to say however that we will be looking at ways to engage more deeply with partners, associates and sponsors, deliver greater value to our startup and scaleup members and to all of this creating stronger and more resilient structures and processes within the association, so that we are not so reliant upon heroic energy.
We know we need better member onboarding and engagement processes, there is a desire for more events, and opportunities to promote and support proptechs to get in front of customers and capital. Our data and insights about our own industry are highly valuable and require deeper inquiry. There are big jobs to be done representing the sector to both government, industry and with other industry bodies.
It’s quite the challenge for a seven-person volunteer committee. The association has bootstrapped its way to our current financial position which allows us to host our major events without risking the farm, but as we seek to do more, we also require more stable and committed funding.
So it is time for us truly to ‘think bigger together’ and we will be reaching out to our established suppliers and associates to look at how we can partner in these endeavours.
Finally
A big thank you to our members, associates and sponsors. The association is really about – and for – you. You are the people who showed up, who entered the awards, came to the forum, judged entries, jumped on the calls and attended our roundtables. It is an honour to serve you all.
The Proptech Association has been created for proptechs by proptechs to support and represent our interests.
This has never been more important or needed. The industries we serve – real estate, property management, property ownership, construction – are all in the most painful stages of digital transition regardless of whether it is residential or commercial. Their focus is understandably overwhelmingly on their localised pain. But as an industry, our technology connects them to the bigger picture and provides the tools to guide and transform. We can genuinely help.
At the Proptech Association, we experimented across many areas this year. Some of the experiments worked, some stretched us a little too far. But we learn and take the results into the next experiment.
There is so much to do – from policy work to collaborations, discussions to start, connections to make, whitepapers, industry advice and guidelines, introductions, events.
If you see something that needs to be done or you want to get involved in, DON’T wait for the board or expect that we need to drive everything. Pitch us an idea.
If you can see how the independent umbrella of an industry association can help support and grow a stronger proptech sector, and you want to be a thought leader, put your hand up. Don’t tell us what we’re doing wrong. Tell us how you want to make a difference.
I wish everyone a relaxed and enjoyable Christmas and a good break to refresh you for the new year.
Bring on 2024!
Kylie Davis
President
Proptech Association Australia
