Property tech start-up Geowox secures €1.5m in funding

Company uses open data and machine learning to generate property valuations

Geowox, a property tech start-up that produces automated property valuation solutions, has secured €1.5 million in funding under the latest round of the European Union's Horizon 2020 programme.

It brings total funding to date for the company this year to €2.1 million following a seed round in the summer.

Founded in Dublin in late 2017 by Stefano Francavilla, Paul van Bommel and Marco Giardina, Geowox uses open data and machine learning to generate high-quality automated property valuations for mortgage providers.

The company, which won a DatSci award in September for the best use of data science in a start-up or SME, said it intends to use the additional funding to double its research and development team and further develop its platform.

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“There is a major opportunity for new solutions in the property valuation space as it has been technologically stagnant for decades,” said Mr Francavilla, the company’s chief executive.

Horizon 2020 is the current EU framework programme for research and innovation with a budget of nearly €80 billion.

Two other Irish companies were awarded funding under the latest round. These were Capri Medical and Vivasure, who are both based in Galway.

Geowox raised €600,000 earlier this year from investors that include Killian O'Higgins, the former managing director of real estate company WK Nowlan. Other backers of the company include Enterprise Ireland and Italian angel investor Gianni Matera, who has backed a large number of Irish tech start-ups in recent years through his investment firm, Growing Capital.

"Geowox is a company transforming the world of property valuations and a great example of a high potential start-up with global ambition winning significant innovation funding at a European level," Garrett Murray, national director for Horizon 2020 at Enterprise Ireland.

Charlie Taylor

Charlie Taylor

Charlie Taylor is a former Irish Times business journalist