Winning the MIPIM Startup Competition in Cannes is the most prestigious accolade we’ve managed to receive yet at Spaceti, and our team, partners, clients, and investors have had a great time the past week celebrating this great achievement. But now that the dust has settled a bit and I’ve had the chance to reflect on our achievements, I want to put it into perspective.
First’s first – what is the MIPIM Startup Competition and why is it so important? Simply put, MIPIM is the world’s largest and most prestigious real estate and property management event, taking place in Cannes each year. The competition itself seeks to “reveal the most promising and innovative startups that tackle the biggest urban challenges around the world.” But only the finals are in Cannes. In order to qualify, companies have to finish in the top two in three regional competitions (Europe, Asia, Americas).
I remember sitting in the audience at last year’s competition and leaving with a conviction that this is the stage Spaceti needs to be in order to fulfil our ambitions as the global market leader in building digitisation solutions. A year of hard work by our team, combined with belief from our clients, partners, and investors led us to winning the European leg of the competition, and making it to the global stage, where we took 1st place globally.
Although the event has the atmosphere of a festival rather than a business conference, the quality of not only the ideas being generated, but also the discussions and Q&A between the judges and the startups continues to get better every year.
The panel of judges was truly stellar: Aaron Block, the co-founder of MetaProp NYC; Liquid REI founder Dan Hughes; Angelica Krystle Donati, CEO of DIG and a PropTech contributor for Forbes; Union Investment Real Estate’s Joern Stobbe; Andrea Jang from JLL Spark; and Marie Schneegans of last year’s finalists Workwell. They evaluated all six finalists on the basis of the innovations in their technologies, the way their solutions solve industry needs, and their potential for scaling globally. Presenting Spaceti to them and engaging with them during the Q&A session was my great pleasure, and I thank them and the other competitors for making the competition a phenomenal experience.
When I take a step back and let that journey from sitting in the audience to winning the prize really sink in, I realize that hard work and belief can help you accomplish extraordinary things. From here, we begin the next phase of our journey: growing our footprint to be the global leader and at the same time helping companies with similar ambitions like ours to also succeed via partnerships and advice.
