Goldacre: RELab

Goldacre is part of the Noé Group, a £2 billion family-founded investment house focused on real estate, digital infrastructure, and technology. Goldacre invests in businesses that drive change by delivering innovative technology solutions in the real estate sector.

Goldacre partnered with L Marks to launch RELab, a startup technology and scale-up program. RELab focuses on identifying new technology trends and opportunities to scale innovative solutions that will shape the future built environment.

The property sector plays a significant role in mitigating the impacts of climate change by implementing innovative technologies to reduce emissions. During COP26, the UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) released its Net Zero Whole Life Carbon Roadmap, emphasizing the urgency for the built environment to achieve net-zero carbon in the construction, operation, and demolition of buildings and infrastructure. Investing in green technology offers benefits such as reductions in carbon emissions and cost savings. Increasingly, businesses that generate revenue through sustainable products and services are proving to be more profitable than those that are less sustainability-focused.

So far, 24 innovative companies from Australia, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Israel, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, UK, and USA have progressed through RELab.  Many of these companies are showcasing the possibilities in sustainable real estate.

Focus areas for the programme include:

• Industrialised construction
• Sustainability
• Supply chain management
• Digitisation

From ARX Robotics developing modular unmanned ground vehicles for NATO, to ECOncrete creating bio-enhancing concrete that promotes marine biodiversity, and Hyperion Robotics pioneering 3D-printed concrete solutions to reduce carbon emissions in construction, these startups are pushing the boundaries of technology and sustainability.

Meanwhile, Podaris is revolutionizing transport planning with cloud-based collaboration tools, Ynomia is transforming construction sites with real-time tracking and digital twin technology, and Zeleros is advancing the future of high-speed travel with their zero-emission hyperloop system.

Through RELab, Goldacre is reimagining and reshaping the relationships between space, people, services, and sustainability.

“The world is changing at an accelerated pace, and sustainability is increasingly influencing every aspect of business. We look forward to working with these companies in solving some of our industries’ most pressing issues”

David Bloom – Founding Partner, Noé Group

Results

Hyperion Robotics

One of the biggest driving factors of technological adoption within construction is the immense pressure from regulators and large capital allocators to achieve carbon net zero. Representing 6% of global GDP and generating a staggering 38% of the world’s CO2 emissions, the construction sector urgently needs better ways to monitor, report, reduce, and capture the greenhouse gases it emits. Achieving this is rapidly becoming a requirement for building permits and avoiding punitive mitigation penalties.

Hyperion Robotics, a Finnish-based company, is bringing automation and sustainable practices to the construction industry by leveraging software, 3D printing, and low-carbon materials. The company’s industrialized building process, centred around the use of robotics and software automation, has also led to increased labour safety. This is precisely what the industry is looking for in terms of speed, cost, safety, and sustainability.

Collaboration

Through RELab, Hyperion demonstrated how its end-to-end solutions can enable clients to build highly optimized reinforced structures with up to 75% less construction materials, cutting costs by 30%, lead times by 50%, and CO2 emissions by up to 90%.

Outcomes

Following RELab, Goldacre joined Lifeline Ventures, Übermorgen VC, PC Rettig & CO Impact, and Katapult in investing €3m in Hyperion to build a more productive and sustainable construction industry.

ShapeDo

Change management is one of the major unsolved issues in construction and civil engineering. With construction in the early stages of the digitalisation cycle, ShapeDo joined RELab to assess the efficiency potential they could bring to the sector.

ShapeDo develops software designed to help manage plan changes in construction projects. The system ensures that plan changes are accounted for in contracts, budgets, and other agreements. ShapeDo’s software tracks and compares blueprint versions and facilitates the creation of court-ready pricing reports, requests for information (RFIs), and claims.

Collaboration

The software uses image recognition technology to help construction companies, engineers, and architects manage changes in their designs. The SaaS allows all stakeholders to review changes in real time, offering tools for collaboration and efficiency. Through RELab, ShapeDo demonstrated an increase in efficiency by 20-40% for design and quantity surveying teams.

Outcomes

Following RELab, Goldacre continued the relationship with ShapeDo and invested $650,000 into the company to support their scale.