Blueprint 2021 Agenda
Monday, October 4th, 2021
5:00 pm - 7:00 pm PDT
Networking
Official Kickoff Reception
Tuesday, October 5th, 2021
7:00 am - 8:30 am PDT
Networking
Breakfast
Opening Remarks
Welcome to our inaugural event!
Anatomy of a Record-Breaking Seed Round
A discussion with Tomo Co-founder Carey Armstrong about her experience building “mega-teams” at Zillow, why customer service in real estate is such a challenge, and how that informed Tomo’s unique offering and approach. The discussion will also cover the purchase mortgage space specifically; what it is, why so few companies have attempted to disrupt it, and why Tomo thinks it can. The company’s recent $70M seed round suggests others agree.
The Office Is Dead – Long Live the Office
The pandemic threw a lot of aspects of the real estate industry into sharp relief — but nowhere were its effects more apparent than in the office sector. Through much of 2020 and 2021, downtown skyscrapers and office parks around the world were operating at a fraction of their capacity, and the relative success of Zoom meetings and Work-From-Home led many companies to wonder how (or whether) they should eventually welcome back their employees — and whether they need a smaller footprint to do so. As we emerge from this crisis, it's clear that the office will be different, with more of a focus on flexible space and hybrid formats for employees to collaborate in-person and remotely. So where does that leave office landlords and how will tech impact offices going forward?
How Tech Is Upending the Traditional Brokerage
Before the pandemic hit, residential brokers were already under pressure to innovate — online portals were distributing listing information more rapidly, ibuyers were providing homeowners with more flexible financing options, and tech-forward brokers were using data and other online tools to stake their competitive advantage. Over the past year, as the housing sector stalled and then soared, more of the process naturally migrated online, and tools for virtual tours and remote purchasing gained quick traction. These days, pretty much every brokerage will tell you they are tech-forward — but what kinds of innovations are making the difference?
Streamlining the Home-Buying Transaction Experience
Buying a home has long been a complicated and disjointed process, with lots of different bit players and stakeholders coming in for cameos to manage small-but-vital parts of the transaction. But more and more innovation is taking place from the start of the process to the finish, digitizing pain points and joining functions to create new efficiencies. In this panel, three unicorn startups from various points along the transaction path will look at how the process has changed, and where there may still be further green space for new companies to grow.
10:30 am - 10:45 am PDT
Networking
Transition to Breakouts
Mortgage Tech Reimagined
The mortgage origination process is highly complex, often involving multiple parties, strict underwriting rules and compliance requirements. This complexity often leads to poor borrower experiences, including long close times (50+ days on average, according to Ellie Mae) and excess costs. It’s an industry that has long been poised for digital transformation — by making people-centric processes more efficient and connecting once disparate parties on a single platform.
2020 proved to be an important year for technology adoption in mortgage — the pandemic accelerated a shift toward digital channels for banking services, and mortgage lenders were quick to adopt technology to meet surging borrower demand prompted by record-low interest rates. Lenders are also embracing technology as a means of meeting customer expectations, while also looking to technology to drive down origination costs through automation. Panelists will discuss technology trends across the entire mortgage production workflow, and how their respective companies are driving change within the industry.
Housing Affordability’s Tech Tipping Point
It's been clear for a number of years that housing affordability is outpacing incomes in the U.S. A study by NAHB recently found that 75.1 million households — or roughly 60% of all U.S households — are currently unable to afford a new median priced home, and that gulf is growing. With the country at a crisis point, tech has now emerged to help address this issue, both for renters and prospective buyers. New tools and methods are aimed at reducing the barriers, from alternative rental deposits to more flexible financing options for buyers. This panel, led by Propmodo, will look at how tech is working to bring residential housing into closer reach for a variety of constituencies.
Using Data to De-Risk CRE
"Big data" has been a hot concept for some time in CRE, as large owner/operators have used increasingly sophisticated tools to aggregate information about every aspect of their buildings. But there's a difference between having lots of data and putting it to use. This session will look at how real estate companies are actively using data to gain actionable insights that create efficiencies and reduce risk in their buildings. A new generation of companies wants to make sure that data is more than just a buzzword — and can become a sustainable competitive advantage.
Understanding the Tech Needs of Occupiers
They are scattered across the full spectrum of industries, and their needs may vary — but as the actual users of real estate, CRE occupiers are in a unique position. They often require tech and real estate services that they rely on owner/operators to fulfill, and more and more frequently they are influencing these owners' purchase decisions. This panel will look at occupiers' needs from a variety of angles, and speakers will discuss how working in concert with occupiers to understand their needs can reduce friction across the board.
What Unlocks Budgets for Investments in Tech?
As a legacy industry notoriously focused on NOI, real estate has historically been slow to spend money on new tech that doesn't immediately create efficiencies that impact the bottom line. But some tech investments are cumulative and require long-term implementation to be successful. Owners often try to differentiate between "must-have" and "nice to have" — so what factors create tech that falls into the former category rather than the latter? And, beyond NOI, what can help convince owners that they need to put a stake in the ground for innovation?
The Fully Digitized Construction Site
While guided by engineering and science, the construction of buildings has nonetheless long been an analog process. But the last few years have seen incredible innovation in digitization technology that can help developers and builders better understand what is happening as a building is being built — and troubleshoot in real time as issues or inconsistencies arise. This panel will look at some of the most intriguing ways that digitization is transforming how buildings are built.
12:00 pm - 2:00 pm PDT
Networking
Lunch & Networking
Innovation in Real Estate’s Finance Layer
Fintech products have been modernizing transactions for every industry, reconfiguring ownership and payments across a wide variety of functions. In real estate, new companies are deconstructing and fractionalizing ownership of assets that were previously only available to well-capitalized buyers, and making it possible for a wider variety of investors to access deals and gain exposure to growing sectors.
The Future of the Workplace, presented by Hq0
This session will look at the climate of the workplace and where commercial real estate is going. Chase and Breton will dive into critical topics landlords need to think about as they build their strategy for the future. Hear why technology is the core to this shift in commercial real estate, what major themes are the center of the future of the workplace, and why the current climate of CRE has been creating opportunities for landlords across the world to become more future-forward and innovative.
Finding the Next Generation of Proptech Unicorns
A recent report from JLL found that through the first half of 2021 there was a record $9.7 billion invested in real estate tech startups. Certainly the number points to the strength of a growing sector, but how much of that money will prove to be smart money in the long-term? In this session, investors from some of the strongest and most prolific proptech VCs will talk about how they are seeing this moment in the marketplace, and where companies are being built to grow large and strong.
Data Visualizations Have Their Place, But Only a Real Data Strategy Will Provide a Sustained Competitive Advantage, presented by Cherre
Data and technology have made the competition between winners in the CRE industry even tighter. Every delay spent on solutions that don't deliver real results is time that your competitors are using to move ahead. This session will cover real strategies for spotting the snake oil solutions and building a competitive data strategy to allow you to win the data arms race.
Innovation Stage
Build vs Buy: The War is Over, presented by NavigatorCRE
For decades owner/operators, landlords, brokerage firms and construction companies have been building their own in-house CRE solution in hopes that it could drive a competitive advantage for them in the marketplace, lure prospective clients, add a new line of revenue or just desired a truly custom experience. But there's a big issue — none of them are technology companies. Over the past 5 years proptech has evolved at an incredible pace with the explosion of state-of-the-art cloud SaaS platforms with the ability to service the industry's most sophisticated operations. It's clear who the winner is here, and those who choose to build vs. buy, are going to get lapped by tech adopters and embracers.
The Increasing Hotelification of Multifamily
As multifamily building tech matures, there is more and more of a push to give residents luxury amenities and community tools, and to anticipate their needs across a wide spectrum of services. Expanded services and digital tools that enhance a renter's experience can be a powerful differentiator, creating a sense of community belonging that results in lower turnover and increased NPS. This panel will look at a number of the different ways that multifamily buildings are using amenities to innovate.
Sustainability as a Value Driver for Real Estate
Environmental sustainability has been a topic in real estate for a long time, but legacy owners and operators have been slow to adopt tech to make their buildings more efficient. A large part of their hesitancy has been related to the question of whether sustainability measures and new tech would just add costs without benefiting the bottom line. But as the dangers of climate change start to have more immediate impacts on the property industry, delaying innovation can prove costly. This panel will look at some of the ways that sustainable tech can add to a building's NOI, and increase its long-term value.
Proptech Bright Spots in COVID’s Wake
The pandemic presented many immediate challenges to the real estate industry and many of the tech companies that serve it — but it also soon became obvious that some tech companies would see large and obvious benefits from the new normal that resulted. Certainly companies that facilitated work-from-home and touchless tours saw an uptick in adoption, but lots of other companies from flex office providers to digital wellness services saw increased interest over the past year. This panel will look at the trends that accelerated and the companies that soared over the past year.
4:10 pm - 6:00 pm PDT
Networking
Expo Open & Official Reception
Office Hours
Meet with top VCs in the Expo Hall after the day's sessions conclude.
Propmodo Subscriber Soirée Co-hosted by Sugar
Hazel Lounge at Mandalay Bay
Open to Propmodo paid subscribers and invited guests only
Wednesday, October 6th, 2021
7:30 am - 9:00 am PDT
Networking
Breakfast
Why the Transformation to Sustainable Changes Everything
As awareness of the carbon impact on the built environment grows, there’s increasing pressure on the real estate industry to build and operate with sustainability in mind. This often appears in the form of new costs -- which understandably makes people slow to adopt. This panel explores the opposite: what if sustainable strategies can increase the longevity of assets and real estate businesses?
9:00 am - 9:35 am PDT
Track 2
Property Insurance: The Untapped Proptech Category, presented by Archipelago
Property insurance use cases provide a tremendous, and often overlooked, opportunity to catalyze data and impact your business — quickly, and with compelling ROI. In this session, Hemant Shah, the Co-Founder and CEO of Archipelago, and Jackson Slavik, formerly head of Starwood Ventures, will showcase how Archipelago enables large commercial property owners to not only achieve insurance-driven ROI with Archipelago’s AI-powered risk data platform, but in doing so to also create valuable data and insights applicable for other use cases as well.
Is Flex The Future of Office?
Today’s changing nature of work is spurring the transformation of workspaces to drive collaboration, engagement, innovation, and productivity. From design to connectivity to space occupancy to flex software, technology is allowing companies to rethink the purpose and function of office spaces for their workforce. Hear from JLL Spark Global Ventures Partner, Laurent Grill, and workplace design and experience experts from Swivel, Liquidspace, Lane, and essensys on the most recent trends driving new office environments and how organizations can stay competitive with emerging workplace technologies.
Optimal Outcomes in a Shorter Timeframe, presented by TrueRate
Backed by active owner-operators with a portfolio over $1B, TrueRate Services is a full service CRE advisory firm building a suite of tech products to speed up every CRE transaction with streamlined workflows, AI-matching and transparency of data. We are excited to exclusively launch and demo at Blueprint our latest TrueRate Portal, an easier and faster way to get financing for your next deal. Meet some of our Partners on stage with us and come ask how TrueRate is getting them optimal outcomes in a shorter timeframe.
Innovation Stage
An OS for Multifamily
10:15 am - 10:45 am PDT
Networking
Coffee Break
Shiny Objects — Finding Real Innovation Amid All the Buzz
As legacy industries innovate, there is a natural tendency for new technology to create boomlets of activity. An idea strikes a chord with the VC community, and then dozens of companies jump into the fray, with similar solutions. One year you'll hear a lot about artificial intelligence, the next year it's all about digital twins, and the following year everyone will want to be an ibuyer. Some of these innovations will certainly have lasting impact, but how can an investor (or an owner/operator) figure out which technological breakthroughs represent a revolution and which ones are the flavor of the month?
Offsite Manufacturing: Building the Future of Housing
Reimagining the Multi-Family Landlord/Tenant Relationship
Landlords and tenants have long existed in a push-pull adversarial relationship, but technology is increasingly coming together to change that dynamic. This session will look at some of the new services and models that are adding flexibility and security to improve the experience for both sides.
Tech-Enabled Resi Value Engineering
In this conversation, we will look at the ways in which new value is being unlocked by homeowners through better closings, enhanced financial tools, and new ways to manage assets.
Revamping Industrial and Storage
The role of industrial warehouses, storage and related properties is evolving rapidly as commercial and personal storage needs are changing. In this panel, the founders of Saltbox and Makespace bring their views on the seismic shifts brought about by technology, and the veterans at Inertia and Iron Mountain share their thoughts on dominant trends and where they are looking to invest.
Searching for Diamonds in Early-Stage Proptech
For many investors in startup technology companies, it can be difficult to evaluate the firms that are going to be the vanguard of change in the landscape, or catch fire as a critical tool for the industry. Join this group of veteran venture capital investors as they bring insights on seed, studio and angel investing models, and from independent and strategic perspectives.
12:00 pm - 2:00 pm PDT
Networking
Lunch & Networking
The Evolution of the Self-Storage Marketplace
Wellness in Focus: Using Tech to Make Healthier Buildings
Following a year when office buildings were largely shuttered to try and control the pandemic, more and more building owners are thinking about how they need to integrate concepts of wellness — both to protect residents and employees, and also the bottom line. Whether it is more sophisticated monitoring of indoor air quality, increased hygiene in public spaces, or even coordination of on-site medical help, tech companies are innovating to respond to this "new normal." This session will look at some of the ways the concept of wellness is being successfully (and profitably) applied by building owners and managers.
The Digital Single-Family Life Cycle
The UnHotel — Deconstructing Extended Stay
Over the past few years, a huge number of new options have proliferated for travelers and nomads looking to set up shop in a new place. While Airbnb is the most obvious example of this trend, around the world visitors can now stay at a wide variety of different types of accommodations — some with hotel-like amenities serving multi-bedroom apartments, others with flexible terms for digital nomads who spend months of the year in different cities around the globe. This panel will look at some of the ways multifamily buildings are changing their models to remake what we think of as hospitality.
Innovation Stage
The 3D-Printed Home
Advances in 3D printing have made it possible for more and more homes to be built-to-order largely offsite, in a fraction of the time. The details and techniques vary by company and project, but the possibilities of this tech are creating a potential revolution in the home construction industry. This session will look at how home construction is being altered by 3D printing, and what the benefits are for builders, home-buyers and the environment.
Fireside Chat
The Tech-Enabled Transaction: Does It Really Level the Playing Field?
Building Crews Powered by Data
Tomorrow’s construction site will look miles different than yesterdays, as advanced technologies are changing the way crews manage, monitor, and staff construction jobs. This session will look at some of the ways that technologists are rethinking and transforming the construction process.
3:55 pm - 5:00 pm PDT
Networking
Closing Reception & Expo
9:00 pm - 11:00 pm PDT
Networking
Official After Party