HARNESS Data Intelligence announces it has received a sought-after place on the PwC Scale | PropTech Programme, run in partnership with GrowthBuilders. The programme will begin in January 2021 with the company set to benefit from a wealth of measures designed to help late-stage start-ups scale in a sustainable way. The scheme marks a major milestone in the life of the company, which has been steadily growing since it was founded in 2017.
HARNESS has already made significant strides during 2020, including launching its PDFx platform and winning its first insurance client, CLS Risk Solutions. A place on the programme will allow HARNESS to benefit from weekly workshops delivered by PwC teams and industry experts, in addition to developing and building on connections with commercial property juggernauts to assist in the business’ long-term performance.
This is the 2nd PwC Scale | PropTech Programme and is tested and proven to offer successful applicants meaningful support and drive connections with new commercial opportunities for businesses with a promising future and great potential. The Scale programme also provides introductions to key decision-makers across the CRE industry, with weekly workshops offered to embolden strategy across sales, marketing, HR, operations, leadership and fundraising. The scheme can support a range of goals, from securing a new market segment to testing a new product within the market.
One of the key ways in which HARNESS has disrupted the CRE market so far is through PDFx, a platform based on machine learning which allows its users to automatically upload PDFs and extract all data in a matter of seconds, saving significant manual effort. The extraction capabilities of the platform include investment brochures, landlord agreements, legal documentation, property marketing brochures, tenancy schedules and more. These are instantly converted into Excel or CSV formats. In turn, this allows a deeper level of data analysis and forecasting.
PDFx’s algorithms enable the automated extraction of data from previously inaccessible documents at a significantly faster rate and with high accuracy. Launched last year, user testing demonstrated it can extract 1,200 PDFs with complex tables in the time it takes a human to extract one, bringing with it notable cost savings and commercial advantage.
Adam Laws, Head of Business Development at HARNESS, comments, “We were fortunate that 2020 was a good year for us and we are looking forward to joining the PwC Scale Programme, as we continue to strive for further growth. We hope that the platform for collaboration, unlocking new ideas and coming together with some of the biggest names in CRE the programme offers will further develop our proposition to accelerate change in data-led PropTech market.”
Angus Johnston, PwC’s UK Real Estate Lead said:“PropTech scale-ups are the future of Real Estate. We’re seeing more of our clients collaborating with fast-growth tech companies to gain a competitive advantage, however it’s a noisy market out there and many clients want to efficiently see what is out there and learn how they can use these innovative solutions. The Scale | PropTech programme bridges this gap by combining cutting edge technology with networking events and best practice, the programme enables businesses to accelerate their growth by opening the door to new opportunities and solving real problems for our large clients.”
