Places for People Innovation Lab

Places for People are a leading UK placemaking and regeneration company that takes a commercial approach to delivering social outcomes.

As part of their aim to transition to a fully digital business, they partnered with L Marks to deliver the first Places for People Innovation Lab, aimed at finding startups with the newest technologies and ideas to not only keep them at the forefront of the industry but also encourage new ways of thinking within the organisation.

“An enormously rewarding programme that has led to promising outcomes for the future”

David Cowans, Chief Executive – Places for People

Startups were encouraged to apply in a select number of areas which Places for People had identified as key targets for innovation:

• Smarter Buildings and Asset Management
• Reimagining Physical Spaces and Construction Methods
• Serving Our Communities
• Making Working Life Easy for Our People

After an international search, seven startups from the world over were invited to join the 2019 Places for People Innovation Lab.

Over the ten weeks, the startups worked in collaboration with various parts of the Places for People Group to deliver projects which would help Places for People innovate as well as share new ways of thinking and working across their business. To ensure this reached the full breadth of the group, Places for People and the startups also ran several ‘Lunch & Learn sessions’ in their offices across the UK to socialise the lab and encourage the spirit of innovation.

Results

Bricks+Agent

Bricks+Agent are an Australian startup who have developed a platform aimed at making property maintenance easy for all parties in the property management ecosystem.

Collaboration

Bricks+Agent worked closely with the Places for People teams to identify the key pain points in their property maintenance process, focusing on contractor management for which they developed a custom-built platform which was rolled out to three of Places for People’s contractors for a live trial.

Outcomes

Following the end of the programme, Bricks+Agent continued to roll out the live trial of their custom-built platform to Places for People’s contractors.

In FY22 Bricks and Agent achieved an impressive 185% revenue despite facing a challenging year marked by multiple lockdowns and COVID-19. They now boast over 1.3 million users across Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, tripling their user base in just one year.

The company was also named Most Innovative Scale-Up in the Property and Facilities Management Category at Proptech Association Australia’s 2022 Proptech Awards.

Doordeck

Doordeck swaps keycards and access passes for the customer’s smartphone.

Collaboration

Doordeck partnered with Places for People to trial their smart access solution, designed to eliminate the challenges contractors face when trying to access sites. Doordeck installed their smartphone access solution across a total of nine doors across the two sites. The solution not only eased access issues for property managers and contractors but was also quickly adopted by residents, marking Doordeck’s first residential trial.

Outcomes

Doordeck continued to trial their solution with Places for People’s contractors and residents.

In 2022, Doordeck was acquired by Sentry Interactive, a provider of advanced digital detection and communication platforms. A few years later, in 2024, Doordeck joined the board of the Physical Security Interoperability Alliance (PSIA).

“Fantastically organised, high level of communication, engagement and support from Places for People throughout the lab.”

William Bainborough, Chief Executive Officer – Doordeck

Life Moments

Life Moments’ vision is to create a fairer society and empower people with data to help them navigate critical life moments. Their first mission is to fix the homebuying process.

Collaboration

With their FirstHomeCoach app, Life Moments aimed to help people enter the housing market faster, cheaper, and smarter with their Digital Coach. Life Moments looked to use their FirstHomeCoach app as a springboard to help improve the Places for People home buying process for first-time buyers. By leveraging a wealth of insights obtained by Places for People, Life Moments deepened their understanding of customer pain points and increased the speed of conversion from prospect to interest. This process ultimately led them to build and test a custom white-label app designed to improve the experience for first-time home buyers.

Outcomes

The next step for Life Moments is to finalise the Places for People First Home Coach journey. Since the lab, Life Moments has expanded its partnerships, joining forces with Aviva, Virgin Money, and the Mortgage Advice Bureau.

Octo (now Spotr.ai)

Octo is an application platform using sensors and algorithms forbuilding management.

Collaboration

Octo were challenged to use their image recognition and machine learning technology to help Places for People improve the effectiveness of their property inspection and to increase coverage. Using satellite imagery and land registry information they identified ~800,000 properties and trained their machine learning algorithms for a range of roof data. This data was compiled into a front-end dashboard providing inspection oversight across the entire portfolio.

Outcomes

In 2022, Spotr received €4.5M in funding from EDF Pulse Ventures, Volta Ventures, and InnovationQuarter.