Ravi Chandran
CBRE partners with Taronga Ventures’ RealTechX to accelerate proptech adoption and innovation in the real estate sector across Asia
CBRE has partnered with RealTechX, an innovation program backed by Asian venture capital firm Taronga Ventures to support emerging technology businesses and promote innovation and proptech adoption in the real estate sector.
RealTechX facilitates connections with a network of leading real estate corporates and engages with partners from government, tertiary institutions and affiliated sectors. This level of market access is difficult for founders of emerging technology businesses to achieve without facilitated engagements through existing relationships.
CBRE’s Asia Pacific team joins current real estate partners Dexus, Lendlease, ISPT, Australian Unity and PGIM Real Estate to collaborate with emerging technology companies to drive proptech adoption of technology in real estate assets.
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Moray Armstrong, Managing Director at CBRE Singapore, said, “Following our recent investment in Taronga’s RealTech Ventures Fund, the RealTechX partnership was a logical next step, providing an invaluable opportunity for CBRE to work with emerging technology companies that can enable first-rate solutions for property occupiers and investors.”
Steph Chung, CBRE’s Senior Director, Digital and Technology, said, “This brings us the ability to learn about innovations early on and to stretch our own thinking with the rest of the RealTechX partner community. We get first access to see how these founders and organisations can add value for both CBRE and our clients, and how we can work together to pilot and scale technology solutions.”
Jonathan Hannam, Managing Partner of Taronga Ventures, said, “In May 2020, we were delighted to welcome CBRE as an investor in our venture capital fund, demonstrating their long-term commitment to driving innovation within their own organisation and on behalf of their clients.” Avi Naidu, Managing Partner of Taronga Ventures, added, “CBRE’s extensive global footprint and proven track record with internal innovation will be an asset to both the emerging technologies coming through the program, as well as other corporate partners.”
In 2020, RealTechX has supported 12 high potential companies delivering construction technologies, smart buildings technologies and a range of tenant amenity innovations. In 2021, the program will support its partners to tackle COVID-related challenges and capture emerging opportunities with a new suite of innovative solutions to be announced in December.
Mr Paul Ho, chief officer at iCompareLoan, said, “proptech adoption is a must in this time of pandemic. The value-added real estate solutions promised by proptech adoption points to the signs of the times. Property services firms and agents must upgrade to keep up with technology or they must die.”
He noted that many property agencies struggle to keep up with all the regulatory changes in the industry, as well as the changing financial calculations for acquiring a property. He urged property agents to master the basics in property financing, refinancing, taxation and CPF.
Mr Ho said that iCompareLoan.com runs a full 2 – 3 days course on how property agents can produce such reports for their customers. He added that the trademarked course teaches Property Agents how to generate complicated Financial calculations using – Home Loan Report (TM) – in 3 mins flat. This helps Property agents to close deals faster and serve customers more professionally.
The Home Loan Report tool is a Singapore’s first one-of-a-kind analysis platform that provides latest updates of detailed loan packages and helps property agents, financial advisors and mortgage brokers to analyse home loan packages for their clients and give unbiased home loan / commercial loan analysis for their property buyers and home owners.
Proptech is technology and real estate coming together to propel the real estate industry forward. The proptech ecosystem is flourishing now in many parts of the world, thanks in large part to ample venture capital, community efforts in local tech hubs, and an increasing realisation that there is a real need for innovation in the sector.
Proptech is all set to not only impact, but also disrupt traditional business operating models in real estate. Proptech (short for Property Technology) is a term which refers to the myriad of startups and new technologies cropping up in response to decades of inefficiencies and antiquated processes in the real estate industry.
Looking at the relentless wave of innovation in the past decade, it is not surprising that this trend will sweep over real estate, an age-old industry ripe for disruption. We know that a trend is established when it becomes a noun or verb on its own. Terms such as Googling, social media, fintech and proptech did not exist 10 years ago, but are now exoteric and commonplace.
Proptech is technology and real estate coming together to propel the real estate industry forward. The proptech ecosystem is flourishing now in many parts of the world, thanks in large part to ample venture capital, community efforts in local tech hubs, and an increasing realisation that there is a real need for innovation in the sector.
One report said three forms of technologies are particularly pertinent and pervasive from the Singapore viewpoint: blockchain, augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence (AI). These technologies are already making their impact felt in the real estate industry with their adoption by startups, global corporations and the government.
A form of distributed ledger, the blockchain is distributed across nodes, locations and even countries. Being decentralised, it eliminates the need for an intermediary to process, validate or authenticate transactions. The report noted that local startups have started using the blockchain for digital contracts and real estate investing, respectively.
