The Urban Land Institute (ULI) Europe has announced that eight entrepreneurial EMEA organisations spanning technology and the built environment will compete in this year’s PropTech Innovation Challenge (PIC) grand final.

PIC is a ULI Young Leaders-led initiative with a remit to foster innovation across the built environment. This year’s challenge, which reflects ULI’s mission priorities, the core pillars of C Change, and particularly the C Change for Housing programme, is focused on finding the innovative, scalable, tangible solutions needed to decarbonise affordable housing. Innovations submitted can comprise high or low-tech solutions, including hardware, software and business models, with entries assessed according to their potential impact, innovation and likelihood of adoption by the jury.

Following in-country competitions held over the summer where local expert juries determined the eight regional winners, the finalists, eight winners were selected representing CEE (Poland and Czech Republic), France, Germany, Greece and Cyprus, Iberia (Spain and Portugal), Nordics (Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway), Switzerland, and the UK and Ireland. The full list of country finalists selected by members of their respective country juries include:

• IZODOM, which has developed construction technology featuring a double layer of insultation internally and externally, aiming to reduce demand for heating and cooling and save energy (CEE)
• aloHOMora coliving, which focuses on transforming vacant office buildings into affordable and sustainable student coliving spaces (France)
• Green Fusion, which offers a software solution for automating and optimising heating systems using AI to identify opportunities to reduce CO2 emissions, lower costs and meet climate change targets (Germany)
• 2025 Materials Limited, which provides a platform-based database of environmental product data for the construction industry to help accelerate sustainable decision-making (Greece and Cyprus)
• Zenova, which specialises in automated solutions for supply and billing management to help enable large companies to optimize energy consumption (Iberia)
• Coat-ing, which focuses on developing innovative and environmentally friendly solutions to improve the thermal insulation of buildings (Nordics)
• vyzn, which offers 3D/BIM-based optimization software managed through an AI-powered platform to help enable professionals to run multiple analyses easily (Switzerland)
• AUAR, which has developed a platform for automated construction of sustainable and affordable timber frame housing ((UK & Ireland)

All country finalists now have the opportunity to pitch their solutions to an expert jury in the European Grand Final on 29 September. The overall winner will be announced subsequently during the C Change Summit which takes place in Paris on 27 November 2025.

The delivery of PIC is led by members of the ULI Europe Young Leaders Executive Committee, comprising Jorden Korte, Vice President Private Alternatives, AllianceBernstein, Oumniya Bouhdoud, Vice President, Private Equity Real Estate Investing at BGO SCP, and Simon Abboud, Programme Director at Hines Europe.

Jorden Korte comments, “PIC, as a Young Leaders-led initiative, is turning ambition into action. These eight teams show how our industry can decarbonise affordable housing now—with diverse, scalable solutions the market can adopt today that cut carbon and costs, work across geographies, improve homes, lower bills, and accelerate the path to net zero, squarely aligned with ULI’s C Change for Housing.”

Oumniya Bouhdoud adds, “PIC matters because it challenges the status quo and develops solutions that can scale across the industry. This year’s focus –decarbonising affordable housing in a financially sustainable way – is especially important. Solving this equation would not only accelerate the decarbonisation of the wider real estate sector but also prove that innovation and performance can go hand in hand.”

Ariana Maass, Chair of the ULI Europe Young Leaders Group and Director, Real Estate Business Development at Helaba, concludes: “I would like to thank Jorden, Oumniya and Simon for their great contributions to the success of this year’s competition, as well as to our European jury, our regional juries and champions, and Anna and Helena at ULI, for their commitment and hard work in driving this Young Leaders led initiative. We’re really looking forward to revealing the European winner at C Change in November.”

The PIC European jury includes Nicolas Bearelle, Executive Chairman, Revive World BV; Sophie Chick, Vice President, ESG Programmes, ULI Europe; Marc Fauchille, Head of Development & Repurposing Europe, LaSalle Investment Management; Anne Kavanagh, ULI Europe Chair; Ariana Maass, Director, Real Estate Business Development, Helaba Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen; Franc Mouwen, EIC Programme Manager for Architecture Engineering Construction, European Innovation Council; Hilke Nijmeijer, Portfolio Manager CBRE Europe Residential Partners, CBRE Investment Management Europe BV; Aneta Rusiniak, Head of Sustainability, Invesco; Naqash Tahir, Executive Director, PGIM Financial Limited; and Lisette van Doorn, CEO, ULI Europe.

All PIC finalists will receive a one-year associate ULI membership. The overall European winner will also receive a full ULI membership including access to exclusive engagement and leadership opportunities.

Full details of all of the EMEA finalists including their pitch decks are available on the ULI Europe website.

Register to view the PIC European Grand Final here. The event is open to all ULI members and non-members.

Please visit ULI PropTech Innovation Challenge for more information.

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For more information, email [email protected]

Notes to Editors:

The Urban Land Institute is a non-profit education and research institute supported by its members. Its mission is to shape the future of the built environment for transformative impact in communities worldwide. Established in 1936, the institute has over 48,000 members worldwide representing all aspects of land use and development disciplines.

ULI Europe has over 5,500 members across 15 National Council country networks. visit https://europe.uli.org for more information.