After years of incantation and wishful thinking, the French real estate industry is now digitally inoculated. Better still. It represents fertile ground for the European PropTech ecosystem. Whatever their stage of development and whatever their business segment. From finance and design to construction, marketing and transactions: PropTech is here, and it's finally at work.
It's been a long road for the real estate sector to truly embrace digitalization. After the Covid parenthesis, which put a damper on fund-raising, these French PropTechs have picked up steam again, raising over €600 million in France, sorry, in the Île-de-France region. With the conviction that the health crisis has accelerated awareness of the need for digital transformation in B-to-B and B-to-C real estate activities. Digital convergence is no longer a subject of debate within our industry. After a phase of denial and then refusal to accept obstacles, these same players are now deeply committed, just as they are massively engaged in their digital revolution.
Unquestionably, venture capital funds are driving fund-raising in the French PropTech sector. In this respect, France is even the European fund-raising champion, ahead of the UK. In this new context, the real estate majors are multiplying their positions and modes of action. Whether investing in start-ups, incubating them or launching funds dedicated to PropTech, the leading representatives of the traditional real estate industry have, whether by force or by choice, converted to digital technology. With two major objectives in mind: to speed up and streamline a real estate industry that has been immobile for so many years. There is still one step to be taken before this digital revolution can be brought to a successful conclusion: the concentration of the players who make it up today.