With their smart and practical mobile app that connects people, companies, properties and services, the company Spaceflow was the winner of this year's PropTech Championship for their community platform of the same name. Now the ambition is for Spaceflow's solution to be adapted and further developed for use throughout Kista.
This year's PropTech Championship was held in Kista and organized by The Kloud in collaboration with PropTech Sweden. The final battle was between the winners of the competition’s three different categories: Spaceflow's solution won the "Worklife Community" category, Vakansa's contribution won the "Flexible Use" category and Vyer's proposal won "Wildcard: Future Kista".
The exciting final was held at The Kloud's premises on Kistagången. And when the smoke finally cleared, it was a worthy victor still standing. The competition jury was made up of representatives from Kista Limitless, Vasakronan, Corem, Ericsson, KTH, Revelop, Kista Science City and Rise. Choosing between the three strong finalists was a tough task for the jury, but in the end, they agreed that the winner of the PropTech Championship 2023 was Spaceflow, with their rationale:
"A solution that can connect Kista's residents and stakeholders and at the same time highlight the area's versatility and competence. By taking advantage of Kista's strengths in innovation, service, community and experiences, it creates great potential in a living and developing environment. We are a committed group in Kista and with the Spaceflow tool we hope to invite and involve more people in our inspiring togetherness."
But who exactly are Spaceflow and what can their winning solution contribute to Kista? On site during the final and ready to answer all of The Kloud’s probing questions was Spaceflow's Swedish business developer Philippa Giraud Hemmerlind.
Hi Philippa! What do you do at Spaceflow?
- I am Senior Business Developer for the Nordics, which means that I have the primary responsibility for our sales and visibility in the Nordic countries. In my everyday life, I work closely with our Nordic customers and our Swedish operational investor Hydda Group.
What does Spaceflow do?
- Spaceflow is the name of both the company and of our PropTech platform. The platform consists of an easy-to-use and flexible app for everyone who lives or works in a property, as well as a dashboard for the property owner or property manager. The aim is to create a community for the entire property, which connects people, companies, and services. In the app, both the residents and the commercial tenants can get information, communicate with each other and the landlord, book services and meetings, make fault reports, unlock doors, learn to save energy and much more. The app generates large amounts of data, which is used for analysis, optimization and development of both property management and customer satisfaction as well as of the app itself.
How and where was the company formed?
- Spaceflow was founded in 2016 by Lukas Balik and Jan Jilek in Prague, Czech Republic. They saw that there was a lack of smart digital connection between buildings and people, and wanted to create an easy-to-use platform with great practical utility for everyone who lives or works in a property, neighborhood or region. Since its inception, a large number of features have been added to the app, which today can help users with many of their everyday tasks.
How did it feel to win a prestigious competition like the PropTech Championship?
- Really fun and prestigious! It was an intense and exciting journey with very tough competition. It feels good when hard work pays off!
How did you celebrate the victory?
- Everyone in the team was super happy, but we were only able to cheer together online because I'm the only one stationed in the Nordics. We have enormous pressure right now, so there was a short victory celebration and then it was straight back to business.
Tell us about your winning solution. What does it do and how can it be used in Kista?
- We want to contribute to the creation of a common digital platform that can be used by everyone in Kista. Residents, workers, companies and visitors should be able to communicate with each other more easily, get useful information and offers, be able to book and order services and many other flexible functions.
In general, how do you think that PropTech will develop in the next few years?
- I think we will see great progress in terms of decision making based on data analysis, more sustainability-focused technology and greater demands to present clear results from various investments. Spaceflow and Hydda want to facilitate collaboration between property owners and proptech players, because together we can accelerate development. We will also see more of PropTech, which increases customer benefit and customer satisfaction. AI is already an important part of PropTech today, and that development will of course continue and accelerate. Not least, at Spaceflow, we see many opportunities to improve our platform with AI.
What does the connection look like between PropTech and Kista, as a world-leading ICT cluster?
- Ericsson is Kista's largest company and has attracted many other leading tech companies. However, Kista as a district also needs to step up and broaden and improve its digital offerings. By collecting many flexible functions in the one app, the possibility is there to connect the entire district via one common platform – which is completely in line with The Kloud's vision for the Kista of the future!
