▲ On Oct.13th, the Korea Proptech Forum held its inaugural meeting, and announced the establishment of their non-profit status.

Various real estate technology companies have come together at the first ‘Korea Proptech Forum’ to foster the domestic proptech ecosystem.

On Oct.13th, the Korea Proptech Forum held its inaugural meeting, and announced the establishment of their non-profit status.

The word ‘proptech’ is an amalgamation of ‘property’ and ‘technology’, and it refers to real estate service that makes use of high-tech offerings such as big data analysis, AI, VR, and block chain.

Since 2010, along with the fintech, the proptech has become a global trend centered around Europe. The UK, Germany, and others have already established proptech associations as a way to encourage collaboration between real estate businesses and technology-based IT companies. In addition, according to the industry, the number of proptech start-ups in North America and Asia has grown rapidly, with global proptech businesses numbering in the 4000s and attracting investment amounts totaling $7.8 billion (about 8.7 trillion won).

Against this backdrop, the Korea Proptech Forum was founded in order to map out the direction of the rapidly changing environment of real estate technology convergence and lead Korea’s own proptech growth and development.

The forum plans to work with proptech related organizations and industries that are not only in Korea but abroad as well. Through the network, the forum will share various technologies and experiences to create opportunities for cooperation and thus promote the mutual development of the industry. In particular, they will offer support to domestic companies who have the core foundation and skills to climb onto the world stage more confidently.

Leading companies from wide-ranging fields participated in the Korea Proptech Forum. They include △real estate information services △real estate developers △space sharing platforms △real estate rental management services and △real estate VR (virtual reality) and IoT (Internet of Things).

Twenty-six major Korean real estate-affiliated companies from start-ups such as ZIGBANG, Cupix, URBANBASE and SPACEWALK to larger companies such as MDMPlus, FIDES Development, Woomi Construction Co., Ltd., and Hanyang Construction are member companies. Sungwoo Ahn – a real estate information service provider – was tapped as the forum’s first chairman. Chairman Ahn explained, “Based on my longstanding interest in proptech, I made a point to attend ‘Future: Proptech 2018’, which was held in London last May.” He continued, “I was amazed at digitization of the world’s leading proptech companies and the pioneering of new real estate trends.”

Chairman Ahn emphasized that the “Korea Proptech Forum is a meaningful way to create opportunities for both current leaders in the real estate business and start-up pioneers in a new market.” His confidence in this forum was evident when he remarked, “With the real estate environment – an integral part of our lives – undergoing rapid transformation, I expect this forum to contribute not only to progress in the industry, but to users’ lives and to society as well.”