Hong Kong-based developer Sino Group and Ping An Smart City have launched a new programme to drive PropTech innovation in the Greater Bay Area (GBA) of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau by fostering local technology startup focusing on the real estate industry.
Set to kick off in February 2021, the programme called PropXTech will push forward holistic solutions in areas such as geospatial technologies, drones, business process, robotics, smart city, smart home, smart buildings, modelling, data analytics, AR/VR, IoT, big data, machine learning, and sensors.
PropXTech is a five-month programme to be run by the Ping An Technology Innovation Center team and is expected to mentor four to eight startups with intensive training sessions and workshops. To be called “cohort”, selected companies will be granted access to Sino Group’s innovation ecosystem to develop pilots and proofs-of-concept, as well as test and fine-tune their solutions in a real-world environment.
“At Sino, we believe our path to the future is paved with technology and innovation. By developing a holistic solution, we aim at further improving our service offerings to transform the real estate industry. Together with Ping An Smart City, we look forward to bringing about PropTech innovations,” said David Ng, group associate director of Sino Group.
Sino Group’s core business is developing residential, office, industrial and retail properties for sale and investment. Besides extensive portfolio in Hong Kong, the group has footprints in Mainland China, Singapore and Australia. It has developed more than 220 projects, spanning a total plot ratio area of over 84.6 million sq ft.
Meanwhile, Ping An Smart City is a technology company under the Ping An Group that focuses on the construction of new smart cities. Under the wave of new infrastructure construction, it deploys cutting-edge technologies such as big data, cloud computing, blockchain, and artificial intelligence to optimise governance system, improve business environment and public service.
Ping An integrated smart city solution covers smart living, smart education, smart health commission, smart government affairs and smart transportation among others. To date, Ping An Smart City has launched above 230 programmes, cooperating with more than 115 cities across China and 6 countries and regions along the Belt and Road.
“The “PropXTech” programme symbolises our efforts to assist the real estate and smart city industries in the Greater Bay Area to innovate and digitalise through the application of the latest technologies. With partners like Sino Group, we believe we could contribute to building the next generation of modern cities together,” said Hu Wei, co-president and CTO of Ping An Smart City.
In addition to offering an open platform for participants to explore business scenarios, Proptech companies to be selected for the programme will have hands-on assistance – both face-to-face and remotely – from a slew of people such as the Ping An operations team, global mentors as wells as a dedicated account manager.
They will also have the opportunity to showcase their achievements, and connect with investors and affiliate partners such as Gobi Partners, a leading Pan-Asian venture capital firm with 12 offices across Asia, to discuss funding prospects.
Criterial for eligibility to join PropXTech are:
- Market aspirations or major business operations in the Greater Bay Area
- Scalable products and services
- Existing customers and implementations in the Greater Bay Area
- Clear business models
- Sales, engineering, and operational capacities
Tech startups from the Greater Bay Area has until early January 2021 to apply to become one of the first cohort of PropXTech. Interested parties can send their business plan to [email protected].
