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Whoo-hoo! We’re psyched and we’ve earned it, because… WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS, my friend.
Here at SolidBlock, everything we do is built around our commitment to changing the face of the real estate industry. So every once in a while, it’s great to get a little external validation – or a lot.
We were excited last month to be selected as semi-finalists of PropCon 2020 – Israel’s Real Estate & Construction Innovation Month. And on Feb. 5 at the gala wrap event, we found out – WE WON!
The #hackathon featured four separate challenges: Smart Concrete, Smart Planning, Smart Safety, and Smart Selling. We entered the Smart Selling category, sponsored by Livestone Proptech Ventures.
In our category, teams were challenged to develop a platform “that would drive people to purchase real estate online.”
If you’ve been following us for a while, you will know this was right in our wheelhouse.
As SolidBlock CMO Yael Tamar said, “We’ve spoken many times about the barriers out there right now to adapting real estate to the modern era. Millennials and other digital natives expect to buy real estate the same way they buy or anything else: with one click and without commitment – able to cash out on it at any time.”
And that was exactly the challenge that PropCon handed the competing teams in this crowded category. Every single team was confident that their solution was going to come out a winner, and the competition certainly was tough.
Competitors were given 20 hours to come up with a mockup of a platform to allow buyers to find real estate that suits their needs perfectly with regards to their desired area, budget and size, while also providing a range of information about the specified property.
Most important of all – the winning team had to convincingly demonstrate how their product would actually convince real people to make a purchase.
“We’ve spent the last two years traveling to conferences all over the world finding out how people want to invest in real estate,” said Yael Tamar. “This win felt like a natural extension of everything we’ve been doing so far.”
Our solution solves the major problem that real estate developers are facing today: purchases of real estate are declining. The new generations that practically grew up with Alexa and Tinder are not excited about having to take out the mortgage and dealing with bureaucracy, not to mention the cost and effort to maintain an asset for rent. And frankly, they can no longer afford to buy property. We are proposing a new model that allows people to buy real estate fractionally, through a no-hassle process and no commitment (able to trade / sell when they want). All of this is possible through blockchain, but the investors (formerly, buyers) need not to be aware of that as this is all done behind the scenes. THis process is beneficial to the developers as well that can use our platform to raise funds for new projects.
These specifications didn’t come about by accident. Livestone is openly looking to invest in a startup that can help them develop a solution like this. So we hope this may lead to potential future cooperation with this high-profile global VC which has already partnered with other major concerns like Canada-Israel, WeWork, and more.
As the winning entry in the Smart Selling category, Livestone will offer SolidBlock the following services:
- Investment in our platform’s development
- Guidance and mentoring services, along with access to Livestone’s team for 6 months
- Valuable connections with industry professionals and Livestone’s business partners
- Assistance in preparing for fundraising and links to potential investors
We’re also thrilled about some of the other prizes, which are going to winners in all four categories:
- Virtual membership in WeWork Labs, including insider access, webinars, and events, plus global networking and bizdev services, along with over $300K worth of exclusive Labs perks and discounts
- Legal consulting from Herzog Fox and Neeman (HFN)
- Consultation services from Deloitte including a customized pitch-delivery practice session
In all the categories, we were so excited to see all the teams’ entries. That’s how we know the expert judges had to make a tough call. The high level of the competition makes it even more of an honor for us to have been selected.SolidBlock would sincerely like to thank the team behind PropCon 2020, Livestone and WeWork for their sponsorship, but most of all – we want to thank every single one of our supporters for being on board with our vision for changing the future of real estate. To find out how SolidBlock’s platform can help make your real estate project a reality faster and easier through tokenization, please get in touch.
