Using data to help property developers find land, replacing a labyrinthine process
Bio
- Age of business: 2.5 years old
- Name of business: Land Insight
- Location: London
- Team: Jonny Britton, Andrew Moist, Sam Wyma, Calum Tansley, Daniel Mansoon
- ODINE funding: €100,000
What does Land Insight do?
We streamline the process of identifying and assessing land with the potential for new housing.
How did you meet?
The founders met on Twitter through a mutual acquaintance.
Where did the business idea come from?
Andrew was trying to do a self build and struggled to find land. He realised it was a big problem and holding back self building so he set out to solve that by starting a company to make more data about land available.
Are you working with any other partners?
We raised money from Pi Labs, Seedcamp, Paul Higgs who is the ex head of land at Barratt Homes, and Simon Murdoch and Damien Lane of Episode 1 Ventures. We work closely with Ordnance Survey and work in their innovation centre. We’ve just signed up our 100th customer.
How has ODINE helped you so far?
ODINE has helped us think about the way our data can be used across many sectors.
What advice would you give to other companies pitching to ODINE?
Have a solid business case with traction that shows that you intend to make a big impact. Open data for the sake of open data is ultimately flawed as you need a sustainable model.
How would you encourage big business to buy into the open data movement?
Open data can grow your marketplace and tap you into an ecosystem of innovation that is hard to foster from behind closed doors. The Ordnance Survey is a great example of this – they make a lot of data open and have some paid datasets.
What’s the key trend in open data at the moment?
We see powerful applications of open data in the real estate arena. It’s a slow moving industry with huge sums of money involved so there is a lot of potential for data to form the infrastructure of a new wave of applications that bring greater transparency for both consumers and businesses.
[This story first appeared on the Guardian]
