As British property tech continues its rapid rise to prominence, Europe’s first property-focused tech accelerator Pi Labs has been announced in London.
Pi Labs will offer startups mentorship, investment and office space in Second Home, a new 20,000 sq. ft. coworking space in Shoreditch.
The new accelerator has been announced in partnership with estate agents Cushman & Wakefield and Spire Ventures and has been founded by Faisal Butt and Umesh Kumar.
‘Next wave of tech company success stories’
Pi Labs cofounder Butt is founder and CEO of Spire Ventures, who last week invested $810k in property startup Spacious.
Both Spacious and Pi Labs’ base Second Home were founded by former special advisor to David Cameron Rohan Silva.
Butt explained he hopes the new can “empower prop-tech start-ups requiring space, access to capital and support, and ultimately help spawn the next wave of tech company success stories”.
We see Pi Labs as the platform that will create the next Zoopla, the next Airbnb and the next Nest.
Spire will hope Pi Labs will help it establish itself as the leading investor in the growing property sector.
Fellow cofounder Kumar also brings experience to the accelerator having previously been an associate at Techstars and Oxygen. He will manage day-to-day operations as programme director.
Pi Labs’ Second Home
The tech team of corporate real estate agent Cushman & Wakefield will also set up base in the Second Home space.
Second Home founder Rohan Silva celebrated the Pi Labs annoucement as “a brilliant example of this type of inter-disciplinary thinking”.
Startups will soon be able to apply for the first intake of Pi Labs.
Prop tech is heating up
It has been a particularly interesting 2014 for property tech, an industry growing so rapidly that many are already dropping the ‘erty’ from the name.
The year started with property tech giant Zoopla floating and was followed by the announcement Agents’ Mutual were to fight back against Zoopla and Rightmove on behalf of estate agents.
Not long after, Purple Bricks raised £8m to undercut the market and were followed by new venture easyProperty (of easyJet heritage) who raised an initial investment round that valued it at over $66m.