Our Q&A series is an opportunity for our French team, headed by Elsa Vaillant to discuss all things PropTech, Start-ups, and Career with different founders from across the region. Each time we will ask PropTech innovators burning questions and quiz them about their product, we hope you find it insightful and enjoy getting to know the founders as much as we have.
This week we have been in touch with Flavien Douetteau, Cofounder & CEO at Ublo.immo.
Ublo is a property-management automation platform for professionals landlords that was founded in 2020 by Flavien Douetteau (CEO) and Agathe Machavoine (CPO).
Our goal is to improve communication between all the stakeholders of a rental property.
To reach this seamless communication, we offer a simple multichannel tools to the professionals.
Ublo is an innovative corporation that helps housing associations to manage all of their property. With our software, we help their property managers to communicate with their tenants and the other stakeholders. Ublo is divided into three interfaces :
Ublo facilitates communication between all stakeholders and automates repetitive management tasks.
Starting a company is hard, whatever the sector, but PropTech can be especially tricky. We are convinced that creating Ublo was a great decision for us, and for the market.
Indeed, there are mainly two companies that share/own the market. Their software programs are growing old and aren’t flexible due to all the versions that make it hard to make them evolve. They are also not intuitive at all.
Moreover, those software weren’t designed to be able to synchronise with other softwares (to share data).
However those last years, we saw some considerable changes coming.
The PropTech is a growing market. In the last three years, more than 400 PropTech startups were created in France. In addition, 204 million euros were invested in the french PropTech ecosystem over one year.
It’s a very attractive market. Indeed, there are 15 million units under management, of which 5 million come from public lessors and 10 million from private ones. This represents a market of more than two billion euros in France alone.
Before launching Ublo, we studied the market by directly speaking to professionals and tenants and realized that one of the most significant changes was the demand for flexible and intuitives tools.
Moreover, the market is in a phase of rapid transformation. The COVID-19 crisis has accelerated this process. Real estate actors have to adapt quickly to new demands from their customers, but the current tools do not allow them to respond to this demand.
Indeed, with the successive lockdowns that we have experienced in France, professionals have had to find new ways to continue their work and have realized the importance of having tools that facilitate communication with tenants.
In order to respond to this demand, we have created with Ublo a design first and user first software, with particular attention to the UX of the software. We are convinced that for a business tool to be well used, it must be intuitive and attractive.
Another request was the ability to respond quickly to customer requests. Ublo has created scenarios which are sequences of actions programmed in advance. The objective is to rid managers of tasks with low added value (often off-putting) so that they can focus on what is really important: the customer experience.
In France, we have a lot of structure that help startups: there are banks of course, but also business incubators and other structures.
We had our first fund-raising in 2021: we raised 625 000€. We are supported by several Business Angels like Kima Venture, Philippe Laufer (ex CEO of Catia of Dassault System), Raphaël Assouline (co-founder of Geronimo), Guillaume Pousaz (co-founder and CEO of Checkout) and Didier Valet (former deputy CEO of Société Général).
Ublo was founded in 2020, in the middle of COVID-19 crisis. At the time, remote work did not have an impact on us. We were still careful to put different process to create a good work environment and team spirit. And even after the different lockdowns, we still kept this type of organization.
Our system is simple: team members come once a week to the office (often on Monday) and can stay home the rest of the week. Of course, if they wish, they can come to the office whenever they want. Thanks to that, we have a biggest flexibility, and have the opportunity to look for talent from everywhere without restrictions. For example, some of our employees lives in the south of France and another went to Korea for an exchange, and they can still work from there.
Our philosophy is that by allowing people to choose their own rhythm, they will be more motivated and efficient at work. It is the same thing with working hours. In the company, we focus more on the work done than the number of hours.
Sustainability is at the heart of our philosophy. We have made sure to include it at the very center of our business model. In addition, our solution helps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from housing, in particular by helping to locate thermal strainers in rental parks.
We talked about remote working, more than just be a solution for comfort, it’s also because it limits travels. Additionally, we recycle all we can when in the office. By doing those things, we lower our carbon imprint. But we also hope to improve those of our client by helping them to manage their thermal resources as good as possible.
Moreover, we also promote diversity within our company, especially gender equality, and education. We really believe that education is one of the most efficient ways to improve mentality, and thus we hired numerous person in apprenticeship.
In recent years, we have seen an explosion in the volume of investment in the PropTech market in France. In addition, we are in contact with many players who want to offer innovative solutions. For example, we are in contact with the startup, EazyRent, which wants to facilitate the decision to access housing by giving a score to the tenant file by identifying the number of inconsistencies. Our prediction is that the number of solutions arriving on the market will increase considerably and will make life easier for managers, but also for tenants.
Our goal for 2022 is to grow in several ways.
First of all, we have just finalized the tech recruitments for the year. We have seen the arrival of essential elements for our development, such as Thomas who will be in charge of managing the payment platform.
We also want to develop new features, our roadmap being clearly defined over the next six months.
Finally, we want to quickly increase the number of customers using Ublo. We currently have a target of two sign-ups per month. At the same time, we are positioning ourselves for bids to begin implementing our solution and demonstrating our expertise.
LMRE are specialist PropTech recruiters, if you need help growing your business or making any key hires please get in touch via the form below!
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