According to David Brush, CIO at Merlin Properties: «The fast growth of technology apps applied to the real estate sector has made it difficult to keep up with the new opportunities which are relevant to our business. That is why, we were looking for an organization with strong ties to the startup community, as well as a great ability to face technological challenges. In this sense, ISDI and Impact are obvious references in both areas which makes them the best partners we could find for this project given their ability to join the startup world with the corporate reality».
With this goal, the Impact Accelerator team will work together with Merlin Properties to implement an open innovation module, supported by cases of success and pilot programs with startups all over Europe. The goal is to use the cooperation with these projects as a trading and knowledge handle to be implemented in its future strategy.
The project starts with an open call to European startups in three specific areas: offices, shopping centres and logistics. Of the candidate startups, Impact and Merlin Properties will pick nine finalist projects whose ideas might have a strong impact on the Merlin Properties’ business and strategy for the coming years.
There will be three 20.000 euro awards and another three 10.000 euro awards to be distributed amongst the nine finalists. Besides that, they will all take part in a one month acceleration and mentoring program, led by Impact, intended for their development, training and education. The project will finish with a Demo Day which will allow them to maintain or develop the initial collaboration.
Interested projects should apply before 17:00 30th Januray at https://www.merlinproptechchallenge.com/