Investments in PropTech companies are on an all-time high in the UK. In 2021 alone, £1.6 billion have been raised towards these types of businesses, which is an increase of 360% compared to the previous year.
With the current pandemic, investments into wellbeing, smart cities and smart buildings are on the rise, but also logistics and sustainability. But which companies have received the most funding in the last few years and why?
The ranking of the UK’s top 5 PropTech companies in 2023 has been compiled with up-to-date funding data from Crunchbase.com and important news as well as information by the businesses themselves.
Top 5 UK PropTech Companies 2023
- Landbay
- Nested
- Plentific
- Habito
- Trussle
PropTech Trends 2023
In 2023 it is predicted that topics such as sustainability, data analytics, visualization and smart technologies will see an even more rapid growth than in previous years. New solutions will arise that are aiming to make buildings more efficient while also considering the wellbeing of occupants. Thanks to virtual reality, the home buying experience can be changed drastically and done from everywhere in the world.
Overall, the digital transformation of the real estate market is becoming more and more of a reality.
Top 5 PropTech Companies in the UK 2023
1 | Landbay
“Landbay” is the number one PropTech company in the UK when ranked by its amount of funding in 2022. A total of $1.6 billion have been raised over the last 9 years which puts the business first by a large margin. The London-based mortgage lending company has been founded in 2013 by Gray Stern and John Goodall.
Their mission is to make the buy-to-let mortgage market more accessible by providing a platform that matches the individual stakeholders with each other. Landbay offers up to an 80% LTV ratio with minimum fixed rates of 2.65%. Their products are usable for standard properties, houses in multiple occupations (HMO), as well as Multi-Unit Freehold Blocks (MUFB). These are also offered for first-time landlords, but only with up to 75% LTV.
Landbay’s intuitive marketplace provides information on the different mortgage products they offer with an integrated calculator to find the right loan easily.
The business model has shown success, as they were able to provide more than 4,500 loans with a value of over £1 billion.
2 | Nested
The second place in the ranking is awarded to “Nested”, which has received a total of $221 million in funding. The company has been founded by James Turford, Matt Robinson and Phil Cowans in 2015. With their goal of making the home-buying process easier and less stressful, Nested has gained significant growth within the last few years.
One of the main features that lets them stand out from other agencies is, that they offer an advanced payment for customers who are selling their home on the platform. This allows them to already purchase the new home while waiting for the old one to be sold. Nested claims that their dedicated chain management team is constantly monitoring the process of the sale. Furthermore, the buying agents of the company are able to negotiate better deals with an average saving of £25,000 of the listing price.
New developments of Nested’s service include a focus on “hyper-local” markets. Here, real estate agents that have high knowledge of a particular neighbourhood will assist customers with their transaction process. In London, where the service started, this has shown significant success.
3 | Plentific
“Plentific” is the third-largest PropTech company in the UK by its amount of funding. The marketplace has raised $141 million, of which $71 million were received in the latest series C round in August 2021. Some of the major investors include Brookfield Growth (the investing division of Brookfield Asset Management) and Highland Europe. Cem Savas and Emre Kazan have founded the business in 2012 with their headquarter currently located in London.
Plentific is a marketplace that wants to connect landlords and property management in order to improve maintenance and repair services. Their platform helps to manage the complete supply chain and process of maintaining a property including contractor selection, appointments and payments. In addition, Plentific’s data analysis dashboard helps to keep an overview of costs, bookings and performance.
The company has recently acquired “TouchRight Software” for an undisclosed sum. This acquisition is supposed to improve the efficiency of their service by providing more automation and productivity to mobile devices.
4 | Habito
In place four of the UK’s top 5 PropTech companies in 2023 is “Habito” with a total of $82 million in funding. The mortgage platform has been founded by Daniel Hegarty in 2014 and is located in London.
Habito started as an online mortgage broker that is aiming to make the application and comparison process for home buyers as easy as possible. In 2019, they have introduced their own buy-to-let mortgages additionally. By relying on their platform, steps of the lending process have been automated and made more efficiently. Habito quickly performs credit, identity, eligibility checks, as well as property valuations. Furthermore, the platform provides Mortgage-In-Principle or MIP certificates that can be used to prove real estate agents or sellers the credibility of the buyer’s finances.
In the future, Habito wants to expand its product line further than just buy-to-let mortgages, in order to serve different types of homeowners.
5 | Trussle
“Trussle” is the fifth biggest PropTech company in the UK with funding of more than $35 million. The business has been recently acquired by better.com in July 2021 for an undisclosed sum. Ishaan Malhi and Jonathan Galore have founded Trussle in 2015, which as of today has sourced more than £2.7 billion in mortgage approvals.
Their mortgage brokerage service is completely free for customers. The business itself generates revenue by collecting a fee from the lender once the loan has been approved successfully. Trussle’s algorithm makes it easy and fast to find a mortgage that fits the homeowner’s needs. In addition, they also have a tool that monitors the market regularly and notifies a customer once a more affordable mortgage than their current one becomes available. With their services, Trussle wants to be part of the lifelong process of people buying and financing new homes.
The company’s future goals are to create even more value from the data they analyze to make the process of acquiring a mortgage easier and more transparent.
Conclusion
Overall, it is evident that platforms seem to be the most successful business model in the UK. No matter if it is matching homeowners with mortgage lenders or property management with contractors, these concepts are receiving the highest amount of funding from investors. This success can also be seen in another major PropTech market, which is India.
Compared to this country, it becomes evident that mortgage brokers or lenders are on three of the top five spots in the UK’s ranking. While in India on the other hand, short term rentals and peer-to-peer marketplaces seem to be more successful.
If you want to learn more about PropTech, smart buildings, smart cities, and sustainable real estate, feel free to take a look at our other articles.
