paul whitehead

Next year is make or break for proptech, say leading portal exec

The next twelve months are going to be a tipping point for technology in the housing market, two of the industry’s leading proptech figures have said. Speaking at this week’s conference organised by The Negotiator at The London Hilton hotel, Paul Whitehead, Chief Strategy Officer at ZPG and James Morris-Manual of 3D tours platform Matterport both made the prediction, although from different perspectives. Paul (pictured, below) told the audience of agents that although the past two years had seen a huge “flurry of activity” in the proptech world, he thought it was time for them to deliver. “A lot of these businesses are getting to the point where there needs to be either good traction in terms of customer usage or product deployment”. “I think the rubber needs to start hitting the road a little bit and the next year will see of the proptech companies either coming through and making a success of it, but inevitably some are going to fail too.” ZPG has invested in or struck partnerships with several proptech start-ups including neighbourhood info platform PropertyDetective, repairs company Fixflo, peer-to-peer lender Landbay and online mortgages firm Trussle. James from Matterport (pictured below) said he agreed that the…