A Southern European PropTech View with Veronica M. Parellada Eller, Inmoself

Welcome to ‘A Southern European PropTech View, by Giulio Di Pietrantonio’ our Q&A focused on Southern European PropTech’s.

Our Q&A series is an opportunity for our Southern European team, headed by Giulio Di Pietrantonio to discuss all things PropTech, Start-ups, and Career with different founders from across the region. Each week we will ask PropTech innovators burning questions and quiz them about their product, we hope you find it insightful and enjoy getting to know the founders as much as we have.

This week we have been in touch with Veronica M. Parellada Eller, CEO of Inmoself.

 Inmoself is the first Real Estate posting site in Spain that verifies properties and users, where you can conduct a full legal and safe RE purchase or sale transaction. In the future we want to be the global posting site to conduct a safe RE at any country. 

How did you find yourself working in the PropTech sector?

After 15y+ of experience in all areas of RE, I took my second Master’s degree in South Carolina, where I specialized in Design Thinking Methodology. Then I made a 180º change of point of view from the user’s perspective to all my prior knowledge when I was hired as a Cybersecurity consultant in the US in 2019. Technology and Security met with all my prior RE knowledge, giving birth to my Proptech interest. 

At what point did you realise there was a gap in the market, and you had the product/service for it?

I was in the US in 2018 where the most advanced technologies and methodologies for RE are in place and had just finished my 4 year tenancy as an Advisory Board Member for the Catalan Real Estate Association. In the Association I would be taking care of services to members.
During the 2018-2019 period I realized 2 things: 
Firstly, while all real estate professional members had access to all type of technology vendors to provide 360º services in transactions, individuals had no access to this technologies in one market place, and secondly, all online Real Estate posting sites and transactions lacked of verification and cybersecurity measures in place to conduct a smooth and legal transaction. It all clicked together in the summer of 2019, and COVID provided enough time to work on the idea.

What are the challenges in the Spanish PropTech landscape for your company?

Our biggest challenge is to struggle with RE culture in Spain, other sites promote free property ads for non-professionals, and anyone can post, exposing users to potential scams or wastes of time for non-sellable or non-buyable properties. Our potential customers are used to quantity and not to quality of leads, and we are trying to be acknowledge by the market as the only safe place to post, sell, or buy in Spain.
Another challenge is brand awareness and let customers and professionals know that we are there, and that we include all the proptech and RE services available and needed on a transaction.
Our biggest challenge are software integrations with other Proptech companies, CRMs, and automatizing all the verification process which is time consuming. 

For all these, we are now conducting an investment round, which is another challenge in the Spanish Market. 

What are your expansion plans for the next year? 

Sky is the limit, we want to start expanding in other Southern European countries, and then the US at Florida. Each country has its own legal framework and we need to adapt info and documents from our software to each geographical location. 

What are your thoughts about the Spanish Fundraising landscape?

The Spanish Fundraising landscape is rapidly evolving towards a more American way. We’re far behind in the number of investors, VC, Business Angels and other options, on the other hand an increasing number of startups are raising at technological hubs, especially in Catalonia and Barcelona, where a growing number of accelerator programs and associations are in place. There’s a lack of equilibrium between supply and demand of fundraising. 

What are your predictions for the Spanish PropTech market in the years to come?

Spain is looking good in the Proptech market. We’re doing our homework at innovation, and local, regional, and even the Spanish government are supporting technology projects with low interest loans and grants to cover the lack of enough private investment to support new projects. The Proptech market is sticking in Spain.