Through this new initiative Geovation will act as a strategic partner to broaden the scope of the Digital Planning Programme’s current PropTech Innovation Fund, identifying new opportunities in housing delivery that could benefit from innovative technology. This will directly support the government’s target to build 1.5 million homes during this Parliament.

The challenge aims to leverage and accelerate proptech adoption, helping to evolve the market and foster a new supply-side ecosystem for the sector.

Founded in 2021, the PropTech Innovation Fund is the UK government’s largest proptech programme, so far successfully delivering 114 pilot projects across 77 local planning authorities (LPAs), in partnership with more than 50 proptech companies. It was set up to accelerate the adoption of digital tools and solutions, and has revolutionised processes such as community engagement, 3D mapping and digital twins, biodiversity net gain, cross-district planning, and site assessment. To date, the fund has facilitated LPAs to work at pace and scale with industry, harnessing the UK’s thriving proptech sector.

Geovation, an OS initiative in association with HM Land Registry, has been connecting industry challenges with startup solutions for the last 15 years to solve local and global problems through the innovative use of location data. The initiative has supported over 150 startups and helped to raise over £155 million in funding, enabling early-stage founders to grow their business through the Accelerator Programme.

The focus of this new PropTech Innovation Challenge is to test and validate how proptech can serve as a catalyst in supporting the government's home-building target through digital and scalable solutions.

This challenge intends to:

• Accelerate wider market adoption of proptech to make better-informed planning decisions at speed and accelerate the construction of new homes
• Support investment in advanced technologies that improve access to planning, land and housing data, increase efficiencies, and enhance interoperability throughout the sector
• Showcase innovative solutions that demonstrate benefits and value for government and the wider industry to adopt and use, accelerating housing delivery
• Foster stronger collaboration between proptech companies, private sector organisations and the public sector to support innovation and modernise planning systems to save valuable time and money

The PropTech Innovation Challenge is now open for applicants to register their interest and will run as a 12-month programme. Through collaboration with policy colleagues, a series of challenge propositions will be identified and developed, focusing on a maximum of five priority problem statements. By unlocking and optimising existing data and processes, the challenge aims to make it easier to deliver high quality new homes.

Milan Bogunovic, Digital Planning Programme Director, at MHCLG, said: “By leveraging both the PropTech Innovation Fund and the Geovation Innovation Services, we are bringing together stakeholders from local government, the development industry, academia and the tech sector to incorporate the broadest possible range of user needs and insights. Our ultimate goal is to develop robust, scalable solutions, which will help deliver the government's target of 1.5 million new homes, while creating a thriving supply-side ecosystem for proptech, that will continue to grow for many years to come.”

The £1.2 million fund will support up to 12 proptech projects, with no restriction on the size, scale, or remit for successful companies; as long as they are registered in the UK.

Applicants will be encouraged to build on the existing insights and resources from the Digital Planning Programme to accelerate delivery. This includes leveraging MHCLG’s Planning Data Platform which provides valuable planning datasets to support innovative solutions.

Ash Wheeler, Chief Product Officer, at Ordnance Survey, commented: “We are thrilled to partner with MHCLG to launch this exciting challenge. Geovation exists to catalyse innovation in location understanding, helping start-ups bring new solutions to the challenges facing modern-day Britain. This initiative will not only accelerate change and unlock the delivery of new housing but also foster greater collaboration across the industry. We look forward to seeing the innovative solutions that will emerge from this challenge and how they will support sustainable development and deliver positive impacts for communities.”

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