Presentation of both companies
LuxPropTech is Luxembourg’s construction & real estate innovators network. Their mission is to ease the digital transformation of the Local construction & real estate sector. Launched 2y ago, LuxProptech currently gathers 77 company members (42 proptech, 23 corporate members, 6 investors, 6 institutional partners). By building this community of innovators who share their knowledge, LuxPropTech helps to spread best practices and collaboration, and aims to drive growth through insights and education.
PropTech Lab is the Belgian ecosystem of innovators in the construction and real estate value-chain, their mission is to increase the innovation maturity of the sector. Today, the community represents more than 210 members (112 proptech, 70 corporates, 11 VCs and 17 suppliers of solution & technology). PropTech Lab achieved its mission by organizing events, encouraging the exchanges of tips & tricks, facilitating match-making, and conducting innovation transformation programs.
When 1+1=3
This merger is a natural evolution for both networks because of their high proximity and complementarity :
- There has always been a high intensity of business interactions between both geographies with regard to Real Estate. Some of the key players even have duplicated their office in both countries,
- Both countries are highly attractive in terms of real estate investment and both represent stable and ambitious real estate evolution
- The 2 PropTech markets are complementary, and combining them increases the scope of the solutions available. To name a few examples, Luxembourg was missing solutions of residential after sales, smart parking (which is covered in the Belgian ecosystem), and Belgian was missing tokenization and blockchain technology (which is covered in the Luxembourg ecosystem)
PropTech is “Eating the world”, and impact every aspects of our daily life
In 2012 Marc Andreessen famously said “software is eating the world”. 10 years later, it’s PropTech (innovations in construction and real estate) that is eating the world, because:
- With Property Technologies, we will be able to win the net-zero race, and fight against climate change since cities are responsible for 60% of the Global Greenhouse Gas emissions, and as the construction Real Estate value chain generates 40% of the CO2 emissions
- Proptech overwhelms all aspects of our everyday lives because as Individuals since we spend 85% of our time indoor
- 2021 was a record year for the PropTech sector: $ 32B were invested globally (compared to 22 in 2019 and 25 in 2020).
Quotes
Quote from Laurent Rouach, Founder of LuxPropTech: “Given the complementarity and the size of both markets, this alliance is a natural opportunity for us. It will allow our organization to benefit from a trained and highly skilled team, a well oiled machine that is efficient at matchmakings, at organizing events, etc.”
Quote from Noémie De Crombrugghe, CEO at ProptechLab: “Our Members will greatly take advantage of our move because the value for money has more than doubled: startups will benefit from geographical expansion opportunities while corporates will be able to source innovations in a huge pool. This Merger is also expected to result in a significant increase of the innovation maturity of both markets, and a jump of technology adoption of 2 years in the future.“
Quote from Idriss, Founder and Executive Chairman of Proptech Lab: “At VivaTech 21, President Emmanuel Macron explained how France shifted from a country of startups to a country of unicorns thanks to a 10-years-long strategic effort of creating ecosystems. Building ecosystems is essential to fuel the growth of the economy, and consolidate a technological sector because they help to define standards, speed-up the intensity of interactions between stakeholders, increase the number of transactions and scale the growth of the sector. This merger is a real milestone, as these 2 ecosystems play a crucial role in the digital transformation of these strategic sectors of the economy”.
Quote from Dirk Paelinck, Chairman of the European Proptech Association: “The European PropTech ecosystem, with 3134 startups and scaleups, is on a path to maturity. It is uniquely fueled by the measures and policies resulting from the European Green Deal, the European Climate Law and Next Generation EU. From a European perspective, I can only applaud this merger as a very positive move: it will increase the cross-border collaboration between Luxembourg and Belgium, it will create opportunities for both LUX and BE players in terms of growth, geographical spread and exit partners. In this regard, the merger subscribes to the essential elements of the mission of the European Proptech Association.”
The merger of these ecosystems in numbers
➢ 287 company members (99 Corporates, 154 proptech startups & scale-ups, 17 VC’s, 17 Service Providers)
➢ Representing 23 956 FTE’s
Importance of these sectors
➢ Construction & Real Estate represents 10% of the Luxembourgish, and 8,6% of the Belgian workforce
➢ Construction & Real Estate accounts for 4,8% of the Belgium GDP, and 6,5% of the Luxembourg GDP
LuxPropTech Sponsors : PwC, BIL, Athome, Deloitte, Besix Red, Baloise
PropTech Lab Sponsors : Immoweb, Realty, Besix Red