First cohort of eleven are bridging the innovation gap to advance the built environment’s big challenges
The Urban Land Institute (ULI) Europe, the world’s largest network of real estate and land-use professionals, has launched ULI Accelerator, a major new programme designed to connect real estate corporations with the innovative solutions offered by high impact PropTech scaleups to drive environmental and social impact.
Following a rigorous selection process and receipt of more than 70 applications, the first cohort of forward thinking, impact focused PropTech startups were selected to participate in the inaugural ULI Accelerator. The cohort of 11 participants was announced at this week’s ULI C Change Summit in Paris, which is part of a ULI-led programme to mobilise the European industry to accelerate the decarbonisation of real estate.
ULI Accelerator Cohort 1 comprises:
- blocksquare (Slovenia) – The tokenization infrastructure transforming real estate assets into digital, tradeable, and transparent investment opportunities. https://blocksquare.io/
- Cambio AI (USA) – Cambio is the AI platform for real estate that turns decarbonisation into ROI for the world’s leading portfolios. https://www.cambio.ai/
- Gravity Co. (UK) – Gravity Co is a fast-growing European flex living brand partnering with real estate investors to design and manage community-focused residential and hotel buildings through a data-driven and technology-centred approach. https://gravityco.com
- Mobility46 (Sweden) – Mobility46 spearheads the transformation of smart parking and e-mobility through innovation, AI, and sustainability — paving the way for a fully automated e-mobility ecosystem. https://www.mobility46.com/
- Optiml (Switzerland) – Optiml is the award-winning global intelligence platform transforming how real estate investors and managers turn decarbonisation and compliance into profitable, data-driven growth. https://www.optiml.com/
- Placemaking AI (UK) – Placemaking AI helps real estate owners and developers increase asset value and profitability by using AI to understand people, places, and commercial performance. https://www.placemaking.ai/
- Planarific (UK) – Planarific transforms the built environment with spatial AI, delivering geometric, typological, and semantic insights at scale. www.planarific.com
- Symphony Energy (Ireland) – Reduction of Cost and Carbon in Commercial Buildings through Optimisation of HVAC systems. www.symphonyenergy.com
- Syte (Germany) – syte is the AI tool for the first mile of every real estate project – revealing all property data and potentials in real time to enable smarter, faster decisions. https://www.syte.ms/
- Vizcab (France) – Vizcab harnesses AI to automate and scale embodied carbon assessments, linking carbon and cost intelligence to unlock smarter, data-driven design and procurement decisions. https://vizcab.io/home-page/
- WasteTracker (Poland) – WasteTracker is the first waste intelligence platform for Commercial Real Estate. https://www.wastetracker.pro/
All start-ups took part in top level presentations to senior real estate decision makers at the PropTech Innovation Exchange held during the C Change Summit.
PIMCO Prime Real Estate has joined the programme as a ULI Accelerator Corporate Partner. The programme is open to additional corporate partners, offering a unique opportunity to stay ahead of regulatory and market change while identifying practical PropTech solutions that drive environmental and social impact. ULI Accelerator participants will continue to work with senior decision-makers, gain targeted mentorship, and showcase ideas at major ULI Europe events including next year’s ULI Europe Conference (Berlin, 1-3 June 2026), to create meaningful change.
Aimed at encouraging participation from both startups and corporates, the purpose of ULI Accelerator is to address some of the real estate sector’s most urgent challenges, including but not limited to decarbonisation, retrofit, energy resilience, circular construction, biodiversity, affordability, operational efficiency, and others, and identify the innovative solutions needed to help resolve these issues.
The Accelerator will provide opportunities to involve ULI’s 5,500 members in Europe to work with and educate PropTech companies on the needs of the real estate industry and learn from these innovators on what is possible to drive progress. Members will be involved through peer learning, mentorship sessions, workshops on the solutions available and innovation trends shaping the industry.
Lisette van Doorn, CEO, ULI Europe, (pictured above) comments, “Innovation is critical for our industry to thrive, and yet real estate is often seen to be slow, including around addressing significant challenges to improve social and environmental impact. While the number of startups has largely increased, the landscape is hard to navigate for real estate companies due to unclarity around the problem each innovation is trying to solve, applicability across different countries and their financial viability.”
“We are therefore pleased to launch ULI Accelerator, an important programme which will deliver a timely, critical solution for the whole industry, connecting PropTech and real estate to matchmake bespoke low- and high-tech innovation solutions to an organisation’s needs. The aim is to both help startups to grow and scale and improve transparency on available solutions for real estate. Working in true collaboration, ULI Accelerator is designed to unlock collective intelligence and build strong partnerships to help organisations meet their objectives through faster and more successful innovation and digitalisation.”
The ULI Accelerator programme is governed by a Steering Committee, consisting of senior industry leaders from ULI’s membership and includes Valentina Shegoyan (Opreim), Adam Burstow (AWS), Nicolas Bearelle (Revive), Naqash Tahir (PGIM), Christoph Mayr (PIMCO), Juergen Fenk (Deutsche Immobilien Holding), and Simon Abboud (Hines).
ULI is partnering with Eightyseven Group, a leading PropTech network focused on emerging innovation trends in real estate and the most impact-focused PropTech start-ups, on the delivery of the Accelerator programme.
Through a curated process, ULI Accelerator is designed to match the strategic priorities of corporates with proven PropTech solutions. The aim is for participants to:
- Pinpoint strategic pain points and connect with startups delivering sustainable, cost-saving solutions.
- Boost asset resilience with technologies that reduce energy use, lower carbon footprints, and improve operational efficiency.
- Exchange best practices with peers and learn from global leaders driving transformation.
- Shape the selection pipeline so pilots truly address the most pressing industry challenges and achieve real value and measurable impact.
“Europe’s innovation engine is humming—more than 3,500 PropTech solutions are already reimagining the value chain,” said Sara Pfajfar, ULI Accelerator Lead at ULI Europe. “Our role is to cut through the noise, match problems to solutions, and help teams move from pilot to portfolio.”
Andrew Stanton CEO Proptech-PR
Andrew Stanton Founder & Editor of 'PROPTECH-X' where his insights, connections, analysis and commentary on proptech and real estate are based on writing 1.3M words annually. Plus meeting 1,000 Proptech founders, critiquing 400 decks and having had 130 clients as CEO of 'PROPTECH-PR', a consultancy for Proptech founders seeking growth and exit strategies. He also acts as an advisory for major global real estate companies on sales, acquisitions, market positioning & operations. With 200K followers & readers, he is the 'Proptech Realestate Influencer.'
- Andrew Stantonhttps://proptech-x.com/author/andrew-stanton/
- Andrew Stantonhttps://proptech-x.com/author/andrew-stanton/
- Andrew Stantonhttps://proptech-x.com/author/andrew-stanton/
- Andrew Stantonhttps://proptech-x.com/author/andrew-stanton/
