A Southern European PropTech View with Ana Lozano Portillo, Valenthia Strategy SL

Welcome to ‘A Southern European PropTech View, by Giulio Di Pietrantonio’ our Q&A focused on Southern European PropTech’s.

Our Q&A series is an opportunity for our Southern European team, headed by Giulio Di Pietrantonio to discuss all things PropTech, Start-ups, and Career with different founders from across the region. Each week 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 Ana Lozano Portillo, CEO at Valenthia Strategy SL (Nidus).

Nidus is an AI-based software that runs on a graphical environment and optimizes the allocated buildable volume. Nidus intends to provide a real solution to verify the potential of a Real Estate asset and mitigate the uncertainties of the investment business plan, especially in the earliest phases of the decision to purchase plots, through the use of artificial intelligence:

– Optimizes the available buildability without sacrificing the quality of the design.

– Allows testing with unlimited combinations according to the marketing mix.

– Results are exported to an editable CAD blueprint.

– Translates the results of the design into economic magnitudes.

– Eliminates the sunk costs of a traditional blueprint.

Nidus does not intend to eliminate the architect nor to automate architecture but rather to make an agile and efficient tool available to investors, developers, and architects that maximizes the possibilities of the future project to be developed while mitigating the risks of not correctly evaluating the magnitudes of the exploitation.

How did you find yourself working in the PropTech sector?

Working as a high-added value Real Estate consultant, we identified a real problem for our clients. The business plan for a real estate investment assumes the number of functional units (only source of income and collaterally index for the cost of construction) based only on general ratios, without a real architectural blueprint. This usually leads to fatal errors when the profitability of the entire operation is considered.

At what point did you realise there was a gap in the market, and you had the product/service for it?

RE companies and funds spend a considerable amount on the early stage (DD), but rarely on an architecture project, mainly for the equipment required for rigorous work that exceeds the time allotted to make the purchase decision.

On the other hand, architecture offices around the world avoid making an effort in an initial phase of a project before obtaining the commission, which is generally very cost-intensive.

In addition, the human approach is generally very narrow – architecture is a science of multiple solutions – and it remains extremely difficult to test various scenarios when they are primarily based on the deployment of human skills.

We aimed to solve this problem without compromising the quality of the design and started to work on our AI tool.

What are the challenges in the Spanish PropTech landscape for your company?

The real estate sector is undergoing the most remarkable transformation in its history. Practically all its surrounding conditions have changed: the actors, the financing, the construction systems, the uses, and the users.

However, its production strategy still seems very indebted to past times. In the current, changing, uncertain and volatile environment, it continues to be a refuge value, and design, risk, and terms are opposite sides of the return on investment. In the phase immediately before the decision to invest, efforts and costs are mobilized to anticipate the project’s viability in a market that moves very fast.

What are your expansion plans for the next year?

So far, the tool is ready for any so-called PBSA asset. We are working on adding some applets to include typical residential projects and incorporating the industrialization challenge. Once established in the Spanish market, we consider going international because of its scalability.

What are your thoughts about the Spanish Fundraising landscape?

Spain is getting very vibrant in the start-up ecosystem. Many cities are betting on becoming innovation hubs fostering entrepreneurship, including BA and VC. However, the current geopolitical and economic global situation may harm this impulse.

What are your predictions for the Spanish PropTech market in the years to come?

A significant expansion is ahead, no doubt. The Real Estate sector will very soon understand how PropTech shall become mandatory to de-risk the investments, help them become holistically efficient, and ensure ESG policies.