APF NEWS
Welcome to Africa Proptech Forum News. On this page, you can catchup on the latest Proptech News. Visit our homepage or events page to see when our next event is taking place, or subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date.
2021 JUNE NEWS
NEWS: US-based digital workplace provider acquires SA’s WizzPass
US-BASED digital workplace provider FM:Systems has announced it has acquired WizzPass, a rapidly growing company in the visitor management system and workplace management market.
NEWS: Nigerian prop-tech startup Seso Global raises $600k pre-seed funding round
Nigerian prop-tech startup Seso Global has raised a US$600,000 pre-seed funding round as it bids to build on strong initial traction to challenge Salesforce in property management in emerging markets.
INTERNATIONAL: Watheeq launches $26.7 million proptech fund for MENA
Watheeq Financial Services, a Saudi Arabia-based investment management and financial advisory company, is launching a venture capital fund worth 100 million Saudi riyals ($26.7m) that will invest in property technology start-ups in the kingdom and in the region.
ANALYSIS: The rise of African tech startups
Technology startups and the venture capital ecosystem that transforms ideas and fledgling companies into disruptive businesses are growing globally—a phenomenon that the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) explores in a recent report on the expansion and maturation of African tech startups.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS: Proptech Driving Transaction Speed Across All Asset Classes
Widespread adoption of proptech advances during the pandemic have dramatically increased transaction speed across all CRE property types, with multifamily assets leading the charge.
OPINION: THE INTEGRATION OF THINGS (IOT) – CREATING A CIRCULAR ECONOMY THROUGH PROPTECH
The biggest challenge South African PropTech faces is a fear of change. It boils down to viewing PropTech from a value perspective and while the inspection industry has done things in a certain way for a long time by incorporating systems and traditional paper methods that have worked, the pandemic has birthed the inevitable – for businesses in the property industry to survive, change needs to be embraced.
TREND: 5 proptech trends gaining prominence in 2021 (India)
Ever since the global COVID-19 outbreak began, the real estate markets across various cities and towns have felt the ‘pandemic burden’ and are facing unprecedented levels of challenges and hardships. Though on the positive side, proptech has come to their aid massively in terms of mitigating these problems.
MORTGAGES: The Future of the Home Loan Application
At the start of lockdown, most property professionals would not have thought that the real estate market would recover the way it did. There were almost no sales, very few bond registrations, and a lot of uncertainty.
2021 MAY NEWS
Nigerian home financing startup Bongalow adds to seed round with UNCOVERED FUND investment
Bongalow is a mobile-powered home financing marketplace that enables Africans at home and abroad shop for the best home loan to purchase their desired property. The startup’s mobile-powered home financing platform enables aspiring homeowners to save towards a down payment, shop for a home loan, and access Bongalow’s rent-to-own financing facilities.
Homeward raises $371m to help buyers make all cash offers
Trying to buy a house in a competitive market is perhaps one of the most stressful things an adult can go through. Competing with a bunch of people all putting offers on a house that fly off the market in a matter of days is not fun. One startup that is trying to give home buyers a competitive edge by giving them a way to offer all cash on a home has just raised a boatload of money to help it keep growing.
Venture capital investment in Africa predicted to reach a record high this year
Investments in African startups keep growing at a healthy pace ever since reports started keeping count in 2015. That year, publications Disrupt Africa and Partech released independently researched and contrasting figures showing that venture capital investments hit $186 million and $277 million, respectively. Those are ridiculously low figures for a continent when you consider that four-year-old Snapchat raised more than $500 million in one round that same year.
Enterprise SaaS chart of pain
A hopefully refreshing read (with supporting images and videos) for battle-hardened SaaS businessmen, new SaaS entrants and aspiring VCs alike. We answer the questions: “why is enterprise SaaS so hard”, and “why is the common tech startup guidance sometimes plain wrong”. We also sprinkle in some wise words from the dudes who know.
Global PropTech Market Outlook 2021, Pricing Strategy, Industry Latest News, Research Report Analysis and Share by Forecast 2028
The “Global PropTech Market – By Type, By Crop Application, and By Region – Industry Perspective, Comprehensive Analysis, and Forecast, 2021 – 2028” report has been added to QY Reports offering. The PropTech market is estimated at USD XX billion in 2021 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of XX.XX%, to reach USD X.X billion by 2028.
The encouraging growth of Africa’s tech start-up industry
In this edition of Business Day Spotlight, we talk about growth of the African tech startup industry. Host Mudiwa Gavaza is joined by Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, founder and general partner at Future Africa, together with Okendo Lewis-Gayle, founder and chair of the Harambe Entrepreneur Alliance (HEA).
TECH IN AFRICA IS CREATING A NEW FRONTIER
Tech in Africa is creating new frontiers for the continent and is rising rapidly against the rest of the world, drawing investment opportunities in the sector. More and more African tech start-ups are being acquired by international companies. Many of these technologies are mobile-based and are built off the back of Africans being willing to experiment and adopt new technologies that people in more developed markets might be willing to try.
Meet Rise PropTech Fund: New €20M Belgian risk capital fund for proptech startups in France, Benelux, DACH-region
Many proptech startups are mushrooming with an aim to transform and evolve the sector. Earlier this month, Belgium-based investment platform AMAVI Capital raised funds for its new pan-European proptech Fund.
South African Smart Cities: A Glimpse of a Connected Future
AtPresident Ramaphosa’s first State of the Nation (SONA) address in 2019, he encouraged South Africans to “dream big” as he announced his own dream of creating the country’s first interconnected Smart City. This would entail the establishment of an urban settlement defined by the sustainability of its investment in human and social capital, transport and ICT infrastructure, and economic development – all of which would contribute towards a much higher quality of life for its inhabitants.
Cape Town becomes major tech start-up investment hub
In 2020, a total of $88 million (roughly R1.2 billion) disclosed investments were injected into tech start-ups in the City of Cape Town across 46 deals. So says Wesgro – the official tourism, trade and investment promotion agency for Cape Town and the Western Cape – noting it as the “highest investments made in SA” during the period.
SA prop-tech startup HouseME closes its doors citing COVID-19 impact
South African prop-tech startup HouseME has closed down after failing to raise a funding round necessitated by the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on its operations. Formed in 2015 and available to the public by the end of 2016, HouseME was a digital platform that connects prospective tenants to landlords with full automation of the letting agency process, and fair and transparent rental pricing – all for a fraction of traditional fees.
2021 APRIL NEWS
Flow launches a marketing platform called FlowFuel, to compete with real-estate listings websites.
Flow, a local start-up which in 2019 raised R20m in SA’s largest seed investment for the new property technology (proptech) industry, has launched a marketing platform called FlowFuel, which will compete head-on with Property 24, Private Property and other real-estate listings websites.
Kenya’s Digital land transaction platform to curb fraud, says President Kenyatta
NAIROBI, 27 April, 2021: President Uhuru Kenyatta has today launched the National Land Information Management System (NLIMS), a digital land resource management platform aptly named Ardhisasa, designed to enhance the security of land records, speed up land transactions and curb fraud
Sandton City and Mall of Africa turn online as shoppers ditch brick and mortar stores
Retailers and mall owners are increasingly turning to digital offerings, as shoppers move away from traditional brick and mortar stores, as the global coronavirus pandemic changes the way consumers shop.
Nigerian Startups Contributed 78% of $263.9m Raised by African Startups in March
VC money moved through the African startup landscape in the month of March as at least 45 organizations received funding either through grants, pre-seed, seed or series raise on the continent.
Q & A with Ashley James, Property Fox founder, following their acquisition by SA Home Loans
Despite the fact that PropTech is likely to play an enormous role in our lives in the very near future (if it doesn’t already), most people don’t really understand it.
African startups invited to apply Smart Cities Innovation Programme
Applications have opened for the Smart Cities Innovation Programme (SCIP), aimed at accelerating 30 African tech startups in the fields of mobility, housing and fintech to shape the “African cities of tomorrow”.
CRE website project? 5 reasons they fail. And how to win
We have seen more CRE website failures than we should have. These failures are expensive, time consuming and terrible for the reputation of those involved. Here is our stab at laying out the pitfalls. We unpack where things go wrong, but, most importantly provide, in our opinion, the questions to ask and actions to take to avoid failure.
EPP’s new app takes tenant relations to the next level
Johannesburg Stock Exchange listed EPP, Poland’s biggest retail landlord, continues to demonstrate agility in the ever-changing retail market by positioning its shopping centres as thriving hubs for innovation.
500 Tech Trends for 2021
Diminished Reality is here: it’s like Augmented Reality in reverse. Synthetic biologists are working on biological teleportation between Earth and Mars. Amazon has been quietly building a massive healthcare ecosystem in the U.S.
Paper vs. proptech: The evolution of property inspections.
Inspections are an emerging opportunity within the property industry encompassing a wide range of potential services from rental inspections, technical inspections, transactional inspections, compliance inspections and even health and safety inspections. Essentially, inspections are the capturing of information to compile a specific compliance report for distribution.
2021 MARCH NEWS
PropTech industry ‘firing on all cylinders’ -Mepatrop Global Proptech Investor confidence index
The commercial real estate industry has seen its share of challenges since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States, but at least one facet of CRE, property technology (PropTech), looks to be “firing on all cylinders”, according to the MetaProp Global PropTech Confidence Index, which the PropTech venture capital firm MetaProp publishes.
Moroccan prop-tech company Mubawab gets $10m funding boost
Founded in 2011 by current chief executive officer (CEO) Kevin Gormand, Mubawab allows sellers and landlords to advertise their properties in Morocco and Tunisia, and has two million visits to its site per month and 150,000 properties listed.
Mortgage Market secures R10-million
According to the fintech, the funding will be used towards expanding the brand and growing the newly founded startup. IDF Capital CIO, Dineo Skwambane comments on the investment made into the fintech startup.
Why do proptechs in emerging markets fail? How to win instead.
Just like startups that seek to fuse enterprise SaaS and data are hard, so is attempting proptech in an under-funded, under-sized, business unfriendly market. Is it impossible? No. but it will be easier if you know the pitfalls upfront, and can plan for them
African payments company Flutterwave raises $170M, now valued at over $1B
The proliferation of fintech services across Africa remains in full swing as investors remain bullish about the opportunities that abound in the sector. Today we behold another unicorn: African payments company Flutterwave announced that it has closed $170 million, valuing the company over $1 billion.
High Street Auctions becomes world’s first group to run virtual reality auctions
SA auctioneer High Street Auctions has become the first group in the world to operate a virtual reality (VR) auction. The lockdown implemented in 2020 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic caused chaos for auction houses which could no longer host bidders given the need for social distancing.
SA proptech startup Leadhome doubled its market share in 2020, eyes further growth
South African residential property platform Leadhome says it doubled its market share in 2020 despite the property market experiencing one of its toughest years in the past decade, and it aims to quadruple its agent roster this year as it eyes aggressive growth.
The crucial role of Digital Transformation in the future of the Real Estate industry
No business can escape the digital transformation taking place across the globe, and the real estate sector is no exception. Real Estate companies are using modern technology to improve customer experiences, boost sales and increase operational efficiencies.
Proptech platform Reslocate connects students with student accommodation
Passionate about uplifting small businesses and bringing about change to the previously disadvantaged, Lucas Tsholofelo Mohaswa saw a gap in the student accommodation market and promptly set to work on Reslocate, the latest local proptech platform to hit the market.
