David Richards MBE, founder of Yorkshire AI Labs, is unequivocal in his view of where the legal profession is heading – and intends to be at the forefront of the disruption.

Yorkshire AI Labs operates a sweat equity and cash model. Among the startups being incubated within it is Lexcelerate, a LegalTech which is targeting remortgages initially but has grander plans long-term.

LEXcelerate has been launched by Yorkshire AI Labs and aims to do for conveyancing what Uber did for taxis. Mark Hewitt, architect of the firm’s proprietary AI platform, has spent the last 30 years helping manufacturing, legal, insurance and property companies to transform their operations using tech.

“The starting point was a remortgage,â€� recalls Mark to ÀϾÅÆ·²èCloud for Founder Friday. “The whole process, from start to finish, was atrocious: the lack of communication, the lack of interaction, and actually the mistakes that were made.

“So I decided that I would have a go – connecting to the land registry, allowing AI to read and understand and interpret documents such as a mortgage offer. And that started to work.â€�

Mark previously led legal software startup Rebmark from concept to more than £1 million in annual recurring revenue before its acquisition by Verisk Analytics, a NASDAQ-listed data analytics group headquartered in New Jersey.

The software was subsequently expanded into the insurance sector and is now used to manage more than £10 billion of catastrophic injury claims reserves.

“I had a lot of legal contacts and so I started to look at whether it could be a piece of software that could be packaged up,â€� says Mark. “But the reality was that wasn’t going to work – because you would have to throw away everything that a law firm currently does and start from scratch.â€�

Thinking bigger

He had known David, a multiple-exit entrepreneur, for more than 20 years. As founder of WANdisco, David had dual-headquartered the data firm in Sheffield and San Francisco but stepped down in 2023 after the actions of a rogue sales employee triggered a fraud scandal. The firm subsequently rebranded to Cirata plc.

“I knew him in passing – and from the pub! – and saw that he was back in Sheffield and launching Yorkshire AI Labs. I basically made it so that he couldn’t avoid me!â€� says Mark.

“Dave sent me off to speak to mortgage brokers, and also to have my idea sense-checked by Paul.�

This isn’t any old Paul from down the pub, but Paul Firth – a highly respected figure in British commercial property law who built DLA Piper into one of the world’s largest law firms and also served as UK regional managing partner at Irwin Mitchell for almost seven years.

“After those conversations, I told Dave that this didn’t work as a software play. He smiled and said: ‘I know – you need to think bigger. You have to ‘be’ the law firm.â€�

So rather than bolting software into a law firm, the idea is to replace the case management and practice management systems themselves, rewriting the whole process.

So starting with remortgages, an established law firm might have 20-25 stages, says Mark: “We’re past 150 steps, and a lot of them can be automated.

“So our starting point is to take the mortgage offer and effectively deconstruct it; then go to the land registry and get the title for property.

“The simplest check is: are the people that are listed on the mortgage offer the people that are listed as the owners of the property? 99.9% of the time that will be the case. But maybe they’ve got married since, leading to a difference in name; maybe there is a spelling mistake in the name; or an incorrect address or date of birth.

“Within about seven seconds of taking that mortgage offer we can highlight any issues that might come down the line; we can then go through the KYC (know-your-customer) and identity checks.

“The reality is that the computer is better at validating all this than a human is ever going to be.�

Lexcelerate’s target market is mortgage brokers who ordinarily suggest a law firm to their clients.

“If you ask a mortgage broker what their key issue is, it’s communication,� says Mark. “They are forever chasing up to find out where the law firm is in the process.�

Uber model

David draws a parallel with taxi disrupter Uber. “Minicabs existed – but what Uber did very cleverly was put it into an app; tell you exactly how much it was going to cost; exactly when it was going to arrive; and exactly where it was going to drop you off. All of it tracked.

“And what else did Uber do? They’re the biggest taxi company in the world without actually owning any taxis.�

He expands: “So Lexcelerate is a law firm – but in the same way that you can order an Uber, or sign up as an Uber driver, you can find a conveyancer, or register as one in under five minutes.

“We think we can become the world’s largest virtual law firm, in the same way that Uber is the largest virtual taxi firm.â€�

Of meeting Mark, he recalls: “Mark came in and he had the technology, but he didn’t have the customers. So we went out and signed up mortgage brokers straight away. What we then needed was the deep domain expertise.â€�

The Three Amigos

Enter Paul. “At DLA we had a troubled subsidiary called DLA Direct, that were basically doing remortgages for Halifax, Lloyds Bank and people like that, at scale,� Paul says. “It was losing money when I got involved; we turned it round and sold it, ultimately, to Capita for about £14 million.

“What I learned during that process was how much of remortgaging could be basically done by cutting the process down and breaking it up into the constituent parts. This was way before AI [as we know it], but even then we could find significant cost reductions and efficiency improvements on each job.

“That’s what first triggered my interest in this. And now, what Mark has produced is highly impressive.â€�

So impressive, in fact, that Paul agreed to lead Lexcelerate. “It’s ready to roll out, and we really do think we can change the market.â€�

Back to David, the computer scientist who envisions a sea-change of tsunami proportions across industries.

“In the same way that [large language model] Claude makes a software engineer 25 times more effective, we make lawyers 25 times more effective – which means that there are 25 times too many lawyers,â€� he says. “The disruption is going to be across the entire sphere – most of the tasks are going to be gone.

“But what this platform actually does is give lawyers a chance of surviving. It won’t be hard to find a lawyer that’s looking for work – starting now.â€�

Meet Sheffield founder unlocking healthy device habits for kids

Luddites

Referencing the Luddites who protested against the Industrial Revolution, he continues: “There’s going to be massive unemployment. People still live in cloud cuckoo land.â€�

Yorkshire AI Labs is also looking to build disrupters across orthodontics; journalism; advanced manufacturing; and football scouting.

The next step for Lexcelerate is to buy a law firm, says David. “We’re looking at two or three different opportunities. Given what we’re doing, we don’t need to buy something with 100 lawyers in it.

“We can buy something with zero lawyers, and we will be able to execute. It just needs to be a shell. It just needs the operating license.�

There will be rival startups with the same idea, he admits. “Our philosophy is that we’re not bothered about competition. This is a £6 trillion global market – I’m okay with the 10% of that! A few hundred billion would be perfectly fine.â€�

Paul, who acquired tens of businesses at DLA Piper and loves deal-making, says: “What I like about this project is just seeing where we can take it.

“I’ve seen the legal business from the inside and, in many ways, it is very complacent. They think that the chargeable hour is here forever. Big commercial law firms are now charging £1,200 an hour for a partner.

“Why would you want to pay that when you can do it for a fraction of the price and get a better service?�

He adds: “This will scale far quicker than DLA, where we were acquiring law firms, trying to integrate cultures from different countries and having to deal with all the regulatory side of international business.�

The shining Dymond at heart of Sheffield’s tech ecosystem

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Trepp was founded in 1979 and acquired by the Daily Mail and General Trust plc in 2004.

It has grown into a provider of data, insights and technology for the structured finance, commercial real estate and banking industries.

Rothermere Continuation Holdings, parent company of DMGT, agreed the sale to Fitch Group, a global leader in financial information services.

The timing of completion is subject to satisfaction of customary closing conditions, including regulatory clearance.

Lord Rothermere, executive chairman, commented: “We acquired Trepp more than two decades ago and I am immensely proud of Annemarie DiCola (pictured) and her team for building a world-class digital information business.

‘Losing our dads at a young age is what drives incentifi’

“Fitch will be a brilliant long-term custodian for Trepp. It has the pedigree and experience to drive the next stage of Trepp’s growth.

“I have no doubt that Trepp’s employees and customers can look forward to the future with confidence under Fitch’s ownership.�

Centerview Partners and Goldman Sachs acted as financial advisers and Baker McKenzie as exclusive legal adviser to RCHL during the disposal process.

Version 1 swoop for CreateFuture ‘creates €500m powerhouse’

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Based in Wolverhampton, the firm is a data and insights platform serving the top 30 operators in the purpose-built student accommodation sector. It has helped over 14 million students find accommodation to date.

The round was also backed by the Midlands Engine Investment Fund II, through fund manager Mercia Ventures.

Founded by Paul Humphreys and Pete Sisson, StudentCrowd provides a vertically focused platform combining sector data with verified student insight. The business supports operators, investors, developers and advisers across the PBSA market with tools designed to inform pricing strategy, competitive benchmarking, market availability, letting incentives and asset-level decision making.

StudentCrowd’s platform combines two complementary product lines. Its subscription data products provide pricing, incentives, availability and benchmarking data for the purpose-built accommodation sector, delivered through dashboards, portfolio analytics and structured data feeds.

Covering 770,000+ PBSA beds across 457 cities in nine countries and drawing on over 200,000 reviews and 4.3 billion data points, these tools help operators, investors, developers and advisers make informed decisions on pricing strategy, competitive benchmarking, market availability, letting incentives and asset performance.

Alongside this, marketing profiles enable student accommodation operators to host verified student reviews and manage feedback through public-facing property pages. These profiles help drive student engagement while capturing valuable sentiment data at asset level, further strengthening the underlying dataset.

Since launching its data platform, StudentCrowd has evolved from its origins as a verified student review platform into a fast-growing B2B subscription data business. Underpinned by 4.3 billion data points, the company has built 100% coverage of the UK PBSA market and is now focused on expanding its dataset and commercial footprint internationally.

The investment will support its next phase of growth, including continued product development and expansion into new markets as the business scales its data platform across Europe and the US.

fu3e appoints ex-Gleeds CEO to board

Oliver Wheatley, investment manager at YFM Equity Partners, said: “What has really stood out to us is that Paul, Pete and the team consistently deliver on what they say they will do.

“They have built a genuinely impressive business on limited capital, and the quality of the product shows in the way customers talk about it and the impressive company metrics. The international expansion is not a speculative bet – existing customers are already pulling them into new markets, which tells you everything about the strength of the underlying proposition.

“We’re excited to partner with the management team and Mercia to support the next chapter of that journey.�

Paul Humphreys, co-founder of StudentCrowd, said: “Our mission has always been to bring transparency to the student accommodation market – both for the students and for the sector.

“On the student side, we want every student to be able to choose where they study and live with confidence, powered by authentic, verified reviews from people with real experience.

“On the industry side, we have built a dataset that gives operators, investors and advisers the independent, accurate data they need to make optimal decisions.

“While researching mainland Europe and the US, we discovered similar challenges and are working with launch partners to expand the platform into these geographies. In the UK, we are further innovating the platform to enhance data-driven decision making.�

Bethan Bannister, senior investment manager at the British ÀϾÅÆ·²è Bank, said: “The Midlands Engine Investment Fund II supports innovative businesses across the Midlands, and this investment in StudentCrowd will help accelerate the company’s expansion into international markets across Europe and the USA.

“Since the first round of funding in 2023, the business has made significant progress in its growth journey, and we look forward to seeing it achieve even greater success in the years ahead.�

Rafael Joseph of Mercia Ventures said: “We first backed StudentCrowd in 2023 and the team have impressed us at every stage since. They have delivered consistently against their targets, bolstered the business with some important hires, and grown the platform into something the sector genuinely relies on. We are delighted to be continuing the journey alongside YFM.�

Deadline extension for µþ³Ü²õ¾±²Ô±ð²õ²õ°ä±ô´Ç³Ü»å’s Founder 250 list

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fu3e, a regular on µþ³Ü²õ¾±²Ô±ð²õ²õ°ä±ô´Ç³Ü»å’s PropTech 50 ranking, is an enterprise SaaS platform transforming operational workflows for the real estate and investment industry.

Harle has joined fu3e’s board to support commercial strategy, institutional client engagement and international expansion.

Harle served in senior roles at Gleeds from 1995. He most recently led the company as CEO from 2019-26, driving significant growth, digital and ESG transformation as well as global expansion across Europe, the United States and Asia.

This month he moved into a NED role at the international construction and property consultancy. He also serves on boards in the real estate and investor community.

“We are delighted to welcome Graham to the board as non-executive director,� said Gavin Gleave, founder & CEO of fu3e.

“His extensive leadership experience across global markets, strong commercial perspective and deep understanding of enterprise customer needs make him an outstanding addition to fu3e’s strategic leadership.

“Graham’s insights will be invaluable as we scale our platform, accelerate revenue growth, and deepen engagement with institutional clients in the UK, US and APAC.

“Graham has a proven track record of guiding organisations through growth and transformation, and his appointment reflects our commitment to disciplined execution and value creation.�

fu3e. – The AI-Powered Real Estate Software Platform

fu3e says it has recently demonstrated strong commercial momentum with a high-quality pipeline and long term institutional contracts, positioning the company for accelerated growth and future liquidity.

Harle commented: “I am excited to join fu3e’s Board at this stage of the company’s evolution. The platform has clear product strength, strong retention metrics and a compelling institutional pipeline.

“I look forward to working with the executive team and shareholders to support fu3e’s strategic ambitions and to help unlock long-term value in the global real estate ecosystem.�

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Jeff Dewing, founder of facilities management platform , told me in 2022 that he hoped its upcoming Mindsett Internet of Things platform would deliver a business with a £200 million valuation by 2025.

He’s not there yet; however he believes a tipping point is coming.

“Mindsett has gone better than planned in terms of its capability. But what we’ve learned is that it’s not gone to plan in terms of speed – because we laser-focused on global deals as we wanted something to move the dial,â€� he tells ÀϾÅÆ·²èCloud.

“When you’re looking at global deals, you are negotiating with hundreds – if not thousands – of stakeholders, which means it’s like walking through treacle.

“We’re talking to three, four global players, all of which are desperate to roll our products out – but they’re having to convince 1,000 other people first. 

“If you’re going to focus on big deals, then you’ve got to be prepared for the treacle.â€�

Game-changer

Jeff is speaking to me after returning from the Middle East, where they “do things differently�. Given that his entrepreneurship podcast is named ‘doing the opposite’, you can see the appeal.

“In Dubai they’re prepared to make decisions in two and three weeks because they want to get things moving. They’ve removed the bureaucracy,â€� he explains. “So suddenly that becomes attractive if you want to accelerate.

“Once a global deal breaks, it’s a game-changer. But you’ve just got to do the slog for two or three years before you actually can get that break.â€�

Rewinding a little, Jeff founded Cloudfm Group – now trading as Cloud – in 2011 and the smart facilities management firm has been an ever-present in our PropTech 50 ranking over recent years.

Cloud

Awarded the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the Innovation category in 2019, it has continued to invest heavily in the research and development of technology products.

Its subsidiary Mindsett was born as a collaboration with PhDs from the University of Essex and behavioural scientists. The proprietary compliance, energy management and predictive maintenance solution is designed to manage assets to optimum performance.

The Mindsett PRISM® monitor is a patented box plugs straight into a distribution board and can monitor multiple circuits, reporting on Apparent Power, Real Power, Power Factor, Voltage, Frequency and multiple harmonic dimensions, to provide the actual energy consumption per asset and the asset’s performance in real-time. 

Working with integrated software, an asset ‘fingerprint’ measures infinite engineering parameters with infinite sensors that it claims will never go out of calibration. Cloud’s data scientists and analysts, track and interpret deviations in these unique fingerprints to create predictive maintenance which evolves exponentially via AI and machine learning.

Laser focus

Explaining the focus on huge deals, Jeff says: “If someone buys 20 boxes off us then I’m going to need 1,000 clients. If I have 1,000 clients, I’m going to need 500 salesmen. 

“So I’m laser-focusing my three big-hitting BDs on three global deals.â€�

Cloud itself is in a healthy state after Jeff rethought the business when COVID could well have sunk it. Group revenue for the year ended 31st July 2025 was £40.8m, down from £47.4m in 2024 after a major client entered administration; but profitability improved with the statutory EBITDA of £1.7m in 2025 a £1m increase on the prior year.

Mindsett, effectively funded by its sister company, employs 25 people but offers a far greater opportunity, says Jeff – and it goes well beyond energy, with a dozen paid trials all over the world.

“The route to market is via energy. If you want to save the planet, only the population can do that – our technology allows the person on reception [for example] to take an action and see the result,â€� he says. “With that instant gratification, they are engaged.

“We’re saving energy by getting people to behave differently, rather than getting a decision-maker somewhere to change a chiller for an inverter or lightbulbs to LEDs. The average Joe can’t make those decisions. What they can do is change their behavior on how they consume energy, because they can see the impact it’s having.

“We’re doing a trial with a leading technology provider in Singapore and they found, by chance, that our product warned them of a cyber-attack a week before their systems did. It could tell that their CPUs were behaving differently on their servers. 

“We’re also in a negotiation for investment in R&D from a massive medical equipment company that wants to roll this out across all their CT and MRI scanners in Europe.

“What that does for us is expose us very quickly on scale; the product is scalable, whereas CloudFM as a technology and FM business isn’t really scalable because it needs great people to operate it, whereas Mindsett doesn’t. 

“Anybody can operate it and anyone can install it. And we’ve only got to be getting £15-16m of SaaS revenues to value the business at half a billion. So essentially that’s the target.â€�

£1bn potential

An American real estate services giant is “pitching the technology as their innovation piece to all new bids globally�, adds Jeff.

“So we’ve already had massive penetration. It’s just getting to that point where every stakeholder involved says: ‘Yes, this is the goose that has laid the golden egg. Let’s push it.’ That’s the tipping point we’re waiting for.â€�

There is a constant stream of interest from private equity, venture capital and family offices, according to the entrepreneur. “We hold them back because we cannot value the business properly today – it’s not generating enough revenue. 

“But what we are very clear on – as are the investors – is that when we get this one global break, our business will be valued from £150m to £1bn, subject to the size of the orders that are coming in. We’re looking for investment by 2028 to accelerate, so we can go harder and bigger.

“We are the only company in the world with a global patent that can do this stuff. No one can get near it. Everyone else is second guessing it, whereas we have scientifically proven it. 

“That’s the big gap between Mindsett and everything else in the market. And we’re the only company that delivers an IoT solution that gives you more information without using a single sensor.â€�

Retirement

Jeff, who has lived in Portugal for a few years now, is 61 and considers himself retired – but it’s not what you may think.

“My definition of retirement is never having to be anywhere at any time!â€� he laughs. “I’ve been retired for three years because I’ll never stop doing what I’m doing. 

“The ability to do something great; solve somebody else’s problem; and to watch people around you grow and get the rewards of that growth… that’s what gets me out of bed every day.

“I’ll never stop doing that until the day I die.â€�

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Amid a restructuring of the business, essensys also this morning reported shrinking profits and falling revenues in its latest half-year results.

A vehicle led by Mark Furness (pictured), who remains essensys plc’s largest shareholder and handed the CEO reins to COO James Lowery in May 2025, made a bid of 17 pence per share – valuing the company at around £11.3 million – and this has now been accepted by the company’s independent board.

It is below the 20p/£13m price mooted when it was first revealed that Furness was preparing a potential bid in late November 2025; however it represents a premium of approximately 9.7% to the closing price per essensys share of 15.5p at that time. 

Furness founded the firm in 2006 and it floated in 2019 at a valuation of £72.6m, raising £28m from investors. Its share price peaked above 300p in 2021.

Based in London with operations in New York, Sydney and Amsterdam, essensys is a software and cloud service provider for the flexible workspace industry.

Furness, Leahy and Currie have agreed to invest in further shares should a private company be formed and also to make a £450,000 equity investment.

It has a current market cap of £10.58m after shares dropped in early trading this morning following the announcement of the takeover agreement and results.

For the six months ended 31st January 2026, positive adjusted EBITDA was £100,000, down from £800,000 in the corresponding period a year before.

Revenue reduced by 25% to £7.8m, which essensys said was primarily due to the continued downsizing of a single large strategic customer – as previously guided – as well as “property portfolio rationalisation as customers focus on their more profitable sites and the anticipated impact of churn from both our smaller non-strategic customers and from our cloud businessâ€�.

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essensys said it had implemented restructuring to enable greater focus on its essensys platform and elumo, a new dynamic booking and access control platform for meeting rooms in flexible workspaces, co-working spaces and office buildings.

The first cohort of elumo sites are now live, it said, adding: “Customer interest remains strong, although elongated sales cycles and slower adoption rates impacted sales in H126.�

essensys remains debt free with net cash of £900,000 at 31st January 2026. Discussions remain ongoing to secure a debt facility.

CEO James Lowery said: “Although we have experienced financial headwinds over the past six months, we have made significant progress in executing our strategy with a clear focus on meeting the needs of our customers, while driving new customer acquisition. 

“We have restructured the business to provide greater focus across our two core products, transformed our customer support function and successfully delivered the first cohort of elumo customers. 

“Alongside this, we have maintained a disciplined approach to capital allocation and operational efficiency while continuing to invest in the development of our solutions. These actions have established a solid foundation for future growth.

“The period has also seen the recommended cash offer for the company from our founder Mark Furness. The independent directors believe that this offer will facilitate clear strategic and operational benefits for essensys’s internal and external stakeholders, including the employees and customers of essensys and provides a fair and reasonable value and a certain exit opportunity for shareholders.”

Uber-owned taxi software firm appoints new CEO

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Shojin allowed customers to make investments that were used to fund loans toward property developments.  

Shojin Property Partners Limited and  Shojin Financial Services Limited have appointed Simon Carvill-Biggs and Ian Corfield, both of FRP Advisory, as joint administrators.

The fractional property investment platform, co-founded by CEO Jatin Ondhia (pictured) in 2009, is not accepting new investments, although it stated that withdrawals can be made as usual.

“Each project is ringfenced in individual SPVs (special purpose vehicles) and is not affected by the administration,� it said.

The company began life as Shojin Capital in 2009, developing property and inviting ‘friends and family’ investors to join.

By 2015 it had switched to backing external developers which required junior funding and two years later it secured FCA authorisation and launched an online investment platform.

To date it has invested over £100 million in more than 45 projects with gross development value of £750m.

In January 2024 the Government took an equity stake in Shojin through the conversion of a pandemic-era loan facilitated by the Future Fund scheme.

The government-backed Future Fund was launched by the British ÀϾÅÆ·²è Bank in 2020 to support emerging businesses during COVID, matching new private investors on a pound-for-pound basis up to £5m.

According to the Fund agreement, if a business raised more than the initial funding through subsequent financing, the debt and interest automatically converted to equity. In December 2020, the BBB invested £860,000 into Shojin through the Future Fund and this was matched by individual investors as part of a £1.7m funding round. 

In return Shojin issued a convertible loan note to investors, including the Future Fund, with interest accruing at 8% per annum.   

As Shojin has secured additional capital, the Future Fund converted its initial investment into equity, allowing investors to convert to shares at a 20% discount to the lowest subsequent sales price. The Fund also converted interest due from its investment at a 10% discount to the prevailing share price at the time of conversion, resulting in the government taking a 5.16% equity stake in Shojin this past month.

At the time, Shojin CFO Noil Porter said: “We forecast a 5x to 8x growth in the next few years, so this has been, and will continue to be, a very good investment for the Future Fund.

“The funding has helped significantly because it came as debt and allowed us to navigate through the challenges of the pandemic. The Government has benefited from a 57% increase in its share value over 36 months.

“This is a real success story for Shojin, our investors and the UK Government.�

From arch-enemies to best friends – the CONDUCTR story

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WiredScore, based in London, is a global certification platform for digital connectivity and smart technology in real estate.

The acquisition by Meter, a provider of internet infrastructure for enterprise, delivers an exit for transatlantic venture capital investor Beringea.

Terms of the transaction have not been disclosed. 

Beringea led WiredScore’s $15m Series B in 2022, alongside Cushman & Wakefield, Crow Holdings, and Taronga Ventures, as well as existing investors Fifth Wall, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Jona Capital. 

The business has since established itself as the global benchmark for connectivity and smart building certification. Founded in 2013, WiredScore has worked with more than 1,000 landlords and developers across 42 countries and certifying more than 1 billion square feet of real estate worldwide.

Beringea – represented by Harry Thomas on the board of directors – has worked closely with the WiredScore team to deliver its global expansion. This support has included participation in the Beringea Scale-Up Academy, the firm’s flagship portfolio programme, and its biennial CEO retreats, as well as guidance on specialist issues such as international growth and the adoption of artificial intelligence.

Meter – headquartered in San Francisco and backed by leading venture capital firms, investors, and founders – provides internet infrastructure for enterprises and commercial buildings, delivering scalable connectivity across internet, Wi-Fi, and cellular.

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“Beringea has been an invaluable partner throughout WiredScore’s growth journey,â€� said William Newton (pictured), CEO of WiredScore. “Harry Thomas brought genuine expertise and engagement as a board member, while the broader Beringea network created real opportunities for learning and collaboration – from navigating AI to scaling internationally. 

“The portfolio retreats and CEO community they fostered were exactly the kind of strategic support that helps leaders make better decisions during a challenging macroeconomic period. We’re grateful for everything they’ve contributed.â€� 

Thomas, partner and head of portfolio at Beringea, commented: “Since our investment in 2022, the property markets have faced substantial headwinds. And yet, William and the team have consistently demonstrated clear-sighted execution that has navigated these complexities and firmly established the business as the global standard in digital connectivity. 

“We have every confidence that the business will go from strength to strength following this acquisition.�

Granola, founded in 2023, becomes latest UK unicorn

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But why, despite how evolved and professional property businesses have become are so many still stuck in admin hell? If you hate inefficiency, you’re going to hate spending money on it too. However what sucks about admin also makes for a huge opportunity. 

Imagine being able to increase efficiencies within your team by embracing technologies that allow you to automate, gain complete visibility over your operations and most importantly have the capacity to scale. There are some amazing tech tools out there that actually ‘work’. We don’t have to compromise on software that integrates with the systems we already use.

So we’re going to break down the property technology revolution, what’s hot in the marketplace at the moment and why you need to be using it to keep your eye on the ball.

The Rise of PropTech in Property Management

For many estate agents and property managers, their first interaction with PropTech will likely be through an system. The introduction of a CRM moves you away from spreadsheets and jumping from email to notepads. A CRM helps with your workflows; following up leads, automating tasks and saving contacts.

But PropTech solutions can include a wide range of software that work together to help teams manage properties more effectively. Tech solutions include maintenance software that can help teams move from reactive, to proactive property management. Other solutions include digitised tenancy agreements that can be sent, read and signed entirely online.

PropTech solutions come in different shapes and sizes. But the main categories you’ll see include; automation software that takes away manual admin tasks, data analytics that can provide insight into your portfolio and tenants. 

Cloud-based software allows teams (and multiple offices) to communicate with each other easily. Finally, artificial intelligence and machine learning are just starting to be used within the property industry to predict maintenance issues, when leases will end or even tenant churn.

No matter how advanced the technology gets, the beauty of PropTech is that it works for you. Yes, it will automate tasks. But it can also automate approvals, remind you to follow up with a tenant (without you having to chase your colleagues) and sync data between software. Rather than pulling people away from the way they work, PropTech allows teams to work more efficiently and focus on what really matters.

The Traditional Property Management Pain Points

Managing property with outdated tools and processes can seem like one long obstacle course. From missed emails to lost documents there are countless ways that a small mistake can turn into costly repairs, disgruntled tenants, and frustrated property owners. Without knowing it, property managers spend their days switching between spreadsheets, email inboxes, and phone calls. Every communication channel introduces friction and opportunity for mistakes.

Small mistakes can cost you real dollars and damage your reputation. Calculating rent increases incorrectly, missing compliance deadlines, and filing the wrong lease agreements waste time and energy that could be spent building strong relationships with your tenants and owners. Property managers make too many mistakes trusting manual processes and spreadsheets. These mistakes pile up over months and years — slowly chipping away at your trust.

Lack of visibility hurts you in the long run, too. If you’re not already subscribed to one central system of record, it can be impossible to have a single source of truth when it comes to understanding how your properties are performing. Are all your maintenance tasks on schedule? How are your tenants feeling? You’re left guessing until something falls apart. You make decisions based on outdated data points, intuition, and plain-old luck. If you want your team to scale your business or take your company to the next level, these setbacks can hold you back.

Benefits of Smart Automation

At its core, smart automation is about using tech to unlock smarter growth. Property teams can shift their focus from mundane tasks to strategic activities that add real value, like data-driven decision making and nurturing tenant relationships. Automating repetitive tasks not only saves time but also empowers teams to scale their operations more efficiently.

Additionally, automation brings improved accuracy and compliance. Automated reminders, audit trails, and digital documentation minimise missed deadlines, miscalculated rent increases and compliance slip-ups. With smart systems in place to reduce human error, managers have peace of mind knowing that processes are running smoothly and relationships with tenants aren’t at risk.

Enhanced customer experience is another significant benefit of smart automation. Automated systems can ensure faster response times to maintenance requests, smoother communication channels and more user-friendly online portals. Tenants enjoy higher satisfaction with prompt services, and clients appreciate the professionalism and reliability when dealing with your team.

Overcoming Challenges in Adopting PropTech

Benefits are one thing, but new technology rarely drops into your workflows perfectly out of the box. The challenges to overcome often come down to balancing cost with future-proofing value. Investing in a new platform may seem like a daunting (or expensive) ask, particularly to smaller teams or agencies. However, when you truly grasp how much time, error and physical limitation you’re paying to manage via manual processes today, that price tag starts to look a lot more like investment.

The people challenge is another area where technology alone can’t fix your problems. How your team interacts with technology, and each other, can make or break your investment in automation. Whether it’s investing in staff training, communications or change management, take the time to make sure your people are on board. 

Buy-in will happen quickly when your team understands automation as a tool to empower their work, not replace it. Watching reluctant employees become truly productive with your new PropTech can be the best return on your investment.

Transitioning away from legacy software like decades-old databases, mission-critical spreadsheets, and good-old-fashioned email communications won’t happen overnight either. Every property team has to grapple with migrating away from dead-end technologies, and your new software should make that migration as painless as possible. Look for PropTech with open APIs, cloud-based access and intuitive interfaces that can help you phase out outdated technology one workflow at a time.

The Future of Property Management

While it might sound like something out of a science fiction novel, predictive analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) are already here, and they’re transforming how property managers and investors do their jobs. By crunching large amounts of data about tenant behaviour, market trends, and day-to-day operations, property teams can spot trends and predict future outcomes with unprecedented accuracy.

Another big tech trend transforming the property industry? Smart buildings. Enabled by the Internet of Things (IoT), entirely connected buildings can track energy consumption, security, maintenance, and more across entire portfolios in real time. Sensors and controls can automate everything from lighting and temperature to predictive maintenance tasks and keep facilities operating at peak efficiency. 

Not only will tenants notice how seamlessly your buildings run, but they’ll also love the enhanced experience you provide. Bonus? Property managers can gain unprecedented insights into the day-to-day operations of their buildings.

Predictive analytics and smart buildings are just the tip of the iceberg. As AI tools take on many of the admin-heavy and number-crunching tasks that property professionals used to handle, employee skillsets will shift to focus on strategic initiatives like cultivating strong tenant relationships and overseeing AI operations. 

Rather than replace people, AI tools are designed to act as trusted partners, enhancing and supporting human decision-making with sophisticated analysis. Understanding how to leverage these tools effectively is becoming a core skill, and it highlights the role of AI in modern business.

As this new world of technology continues to take shape, remember that the future of property doesn’t involve replacing your employees with robots. Instead, it will introduce you to tools that can think faster, analyse more data, and improve your operations quicker than ever before.

Getting Started With Automation

The goal is to use technology to unlock your real estate business’s capacity. First, assess your current workflows and pain points. Look closely at where time is wasted, tasks are duplicated, and errors occur frequently. Documenting these processes will help you visualise areas for improvement and identify prime candidates for automation.

Selecting the right PropTech solutions is next. With an array of tools available, from CRM software and automated communication platforms to AI-driven analytics tools it can be overwhelming. Focus on technologies that address your specific business needs and integrate well with your existing systems. Consider flexibility, scalability, and user experience above all else to ensure easy adoption for both your team and clients.

Implementing new technology isn’t a flip-of-a-switch solution. Start small, test integrations, and train your team on new features. Set benchmarks and track early wins. Iterate as you discover what works and what doesn’t.

From Insight to Action: Transform Your Property Management

Manual admin tasks and repetitive workflows don’t have to be your reality. Property professionals who choose to use PropTech have the opportunity to free up time in their schedules, minimise errors and improve tenant and client experiences.

Knowing PropTech is beneficial is one thing. Actually implementing it is where the work lies. Assess your current operations, research the tools available to you and introduce automation across your business in the right areas. 

The future is now, embrace it before your competition does.

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Dwelly says it leverages AI to significantly enhance the user experience throughout the entire letting cycle, streamlining tenant-landlord matchmaking, maintenance and rent collection.

The firm secured the debt and equity investment to continue its acquisition of lettings agencies. To date it has snapped up eight and currently manages over £200m in GMV. 

Around 20,000 firms operate in this space, with the top 100 firms accounting for less than 30% of the approximately 5.5m rental properties across the country. Many of these firms are small or independently owned, often lacking modern systems and tools. 

After an acquisition, Dwelly integrates its AI-enabled operating system to automate key functions, reduce manual overhead, and standardize service quality. By increasing the number of agencies and properties under management, Dwelly gains more data to train and improve its AI automations even further. 

The capital raise includes a £32m equity round led by global investment and transformation company General Catalyst, one of Silicon Valley’s leading venture capital firms, with the participation of Begin Capital and S16VC, and a £37m debt facility from Trinity Capital.

Allica Bank raises £115m to become UK’s latest unicorn

“We have crossed 10,000 properties under management, placing Dwelly among the UK’s top 15 largest letting agencies in less than two years – an unseen speed of growth for letting agencies,� said Ilya Drozdov, co-founder and CEO of Dwelly.

“Our vision is to build an end-to-end platform evolving into a fully transactional rental marketplace with a robust FinTech layer for rent collection and ancillary products.�

OakNorth names CFO to replace retiring Rajesh Gupta

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