Sourcing new digital technologies

Grosvenor Group Limited (‘Grosvenor Group’), the privately-owned international property group, has partnered with global innovation platform Plug and Play to help source digital technologies that will support its innovation strategy. Plug and Play connects some of the world’s largest corporations with tech start-ups through industry-focused accelerator programs. As a partner, Grosvenor Group will help select start-ups in response to a specific business challenge and will have access to their …

You can now book an Uber ride without a phone for the first time

For the first 10 years, Uber was more or less useless to those without a phone. But that’s finally starting to change. Earlier this month, the ride-hailing giant rolled out a kiosk at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport that allows passengers to book a ride without a smartphone. The company says it’s designed to create greater access for travelers who might have a difficult time using the app because of language or tech issues. …

Meet Olli 2.0, a 3D-printed autonomous shuttle

From afar, Olli resembles many of the “future is now!” electric autonomous shuttles that have popped up in recent years. The tall rectangular pod, with its wide-set headlights and expansive windows nestled between a rounded frame, gives the shuttle a friendly countenance that screams, ever so gently, “come along, take a ride.” But Olli is different in almost every way, from how it’s produced to its origin story. And now, its maker, Local Motors,  has given Olli an upgrade in hopes of acceler…

U.K. PropTech Star Residently Raises £7m in Funding

In news from the U.K. proptech sector, building platform Residently has just gleaned £7 million in seed funding. The funding from Felix Capital, LocalGlobe and A/O PropTech. The seed funding is slated to be used to grow Residently’s engineering and product teams. In addition, the startup says the rental portfolios in London and New York will now be expanded. Co-founder and CEO Tom Allason offered this via the Residently blog:…

Speaker Spotlight: Steve Weikal, Head of Industry Relations, MIT Center for Real Estate

Attending the CREtech New York Conference on October 16-17, 2019? Steve Weikal, Head of Industry Relations, MIT Center for Real Estate will moderate the Keynote Session, “An In-depth Look at the Tech Behind the Largest New Urban Development in the World,” featuring the lead tech executives behind Hudson Yards in New York, Kenneth Finnegan and Scott Evans. The extraordinary discussion will shed light on how technology has shaped Hudson Yards into one of the most globally sophisticated and inno…

Adult Proms, Yoga And A Yacht: Sharing Is Caring In The New Co-Living Paradigm

When Jords Day moved to Los Angeles a year ago, he didn’t know a single person. Like many aspiring artists with stars in their eyes, the 24-year-old native of Essex, United Kingdom, came to Los Angeles to pursue an entertainment career in singing and songwriting.

The rise of the C-suite in city halls

From Oakland to Chattanooga tech-focused C-suite roles are rising in popularity among city halls.

Why it matters: As the private sector raises expectations for fast and reliable services, the public sector is working to adapt, adding roles like chief technology officer, chief information officer, chief data officer, and chief analytics officer.

[Download Report] UK PropTech Midyear Report

UK companies raised $254.7 million in 2019 Q1-Q2, representing 35% of all venture capital investments (dollar volume) in Europe and 1.7% of all dollar volume in the global PropTech market.  Quarter over quarter, the median deal size increased by nearly 78% to $1.3 million.  On the heels of a dark Brexit cloud, overall, through the first half of 2019, venture capital investments in private market real estate tech companies declined by an estimated 64%. …

WeWork’s Largest Markets Brace For IPO Impact

LONDON and NEW YORK — In 2010, the biggest office tenants in these two metropolises would have been just as recognizable in 1910, and sum up the history of these places. In New York, it was JPMorgan Chase, the bank founded by the financier who helped fund the creation of modern America. In London, it was HSBC, the former Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corp., a company that ties together London with its former Far East colonial empire.

New Technology Tracks Leasing Agent Activity

LeaseHawk has launched Agent AI, a new AI tool to track leasing agent performance. The tool measures leasing agent call performance on all first-time prospect calls to ultimately identify gaps in leasing agent performance and reduce their dependency on costly phone shops. For the past 7 years, LeaseHawk scored the call performance on over 25,000 unique leasing agents on over 5 million calls and leveraged the enormous set of data to build the machine learning models that are now used in the ne…