Proptech takes up real estate challenges created by Covid

Having commissioned research for a report with the title Covid 19: Real Estate’s Great Reset, Pi Labs, a venture capital firm focused on the proptech segment, has its finger on property’s pulse.

Andy Saull, research associate with Pi Labs, said that during the pandemic proptech investment has been counter-cyclical. Talking to Real Asset Media’s Richard Betts he said that in the office sector landlords have needed to adopt technology to open buildings up again while tenants have had to adopt smart building technology to entice staff back. Previously, there was less imperative to employ such technologies as it was difficult to show a return on investment.

In the retail sector the challenge is different again, Saull said. Where stores are about “brand activation”, and turnover rents become the norm, “simply basing turnover on store turnover is no longer sufficient, you need to be indexing your rents now on the digital first indicators of retail store success so we are really interested in technologies that can really understand how people are interacting with real estate…taking data about the customer and giving it straight to landlords.”

Click on the video to watch the full interview.