Australian Community Media’s Antony Catalano and Alex Waislitz have injected $6 million into PropTech start-up Propic to propel its development of Artificial Intelligence solutions for the real estate market.
Propic has already developed two AI technology solutions that allow agents and property managers to communicate with clients through automated conversational or text AI at any time of the day or night.
Mr Catalano, who was the chief executive officer of Domain for four years before becoming the ACM executive chairman, said the investment continued the commitment to “grow and evolve as emerging technologies prove their value”.
“What is apparent to us is that AI and big data will play a material role in real estate as we’re seeing in just about every other vertical,” he said.
“To have world-leading solutions being developed here in Australia is fantastic to see, particularly when you look at the global application of the Propic tech platform.”
Jeffery Gray, a former Domain executive who managed the agent services department during Mr Catalano’s term as CEO, founded Propic in 2019.
“Our vision is to intelligently connect people and places with the services they need in real estate in their time and place,” Mr Gray said.
“To do this, we use AI to improve how buyers and tenants engage around property transactions.
“Our solutions also enable agents to leverage a data platform that finds appraisals and listings for them.”
Recently Propic was selected as one of six companies in the Asia Pacific to join the global PropTech Accelerator Program REACH, run by Second Century Ventures, the venture capital arm of the National Association of Realtors in the US.
Mr Catalano said the investment in Propic had been made by IMP, which is his and Mr Waislitz’s real estate digital media investment vehicle, which also holds equity in other real estate related companies.
“Jeff and the team have developed two compelling products and we can see a range of strategic and operational applications.
“Their use of AI is first-class and it provides an understanding of vendor propensity we’ve not seen before.
“This will help us understand the property market broadly, but also at a granular level when looking at shifting trends of both buyer and vendor behaviour.”
Mr Gray said the investment would fuel a significant boost in the PropTech arena.
“This funding will accelerate a significant scale-up in our business, proving Australia can lead in the technology space,” he said.
“We genuinely believe our solutions will become ubiquitous, transforming the customer and agent experience here and overseas.”
