“Proptech companies need to stand together”
Last Updated on 23 April 2025 by Urbanitae
Innomads is a proptech company founded seven years ago in the offices of the real estate services firm Forcadell, as part of a project launched in collaboration with nine other real estate agencies. At the time, proptech was experiencing significant growth, making it a key moment to bridge the gap between technology and real estate. Innomads emerged as a key ally for innovation in this market, but also as a space for networking and identifying trends. Leading the platform is Xenia Robert Abad, HUB Director, who shares more details in this interview about their work and the challenges the sector will face in the coming years.
How did Innomads Proptech HUB come about, and what role does it play in the digital transformation of the real estate sector?
Innomads was founded seven years ago in Forcadell’s offices. When proptech began to gain traction, Forcadell realized that sharing their knowledge of the technological side of real estate with other companies would be key to helping drive the proptech movement. They created a separate LLC, and their Innovation department became an independent company. Innomads plays a key role in the sector’s digital transformation by acting as a strategic connector between tech startups, corporations, and other players in the ecosystem.
What sets the company apart from other hubs, and how does it support startups and corporations in proptech innovation and project development?
We like to define Innomads along two distinct verticals, which complement each other. For all those SMEs and corporations that don’t want to or can’t afford an in-house R&D department, we act as their external innovation department. What sets us apart is that companies can join a group where conversations and advice naturally emerge… And even though they are competitors in the market, when it comes to innovation, they collaborate. Being part of Innomads gives them access to much more valuable and affordable proposals. In short, we are not just a networking space; we are a platform that identifies trends, advises on technology adoption, and helps companies effectively implement innovation. While many focus solely on the startup ecosystem, Innomads acts as a bridge between startups and large corporations, facilitating the integration of proptech solutions into established businesses.
We also have the HUB side, where we stay up to date on everything happening in innovation and technology in the sector to identify companies that may be valuable for our members and our broader community of businesses, startups, and institutions in our database. In this area, Innomads also hosts webinars, shares news and events from different companies to increase their visibility, and spreads our knowledge through our podcast “Hablando con propiedad”, where Francesc Quintana and I interview KOLs and CEOs in the industry.
“Innomads is not only an innovation HUB but also a catalyst for knowledge and technology”
What resources and training does Innomads provide to boost companies’ competitiveness within the ecosystem?
Innomads is not only an innovation HUB but also a knowledge and technology accelerator, offering key resources and training to help real estate companies adapt to the future and remain competitive. With curated and exclusive materials like in-depth reports on the latest innovations in proptech and real estate digitalization, trend analyses, pilot tests to trial new technologies before full-scale implementation, and weekly updates on valuable solutions from both strategic and operational perspectives, we’ve helped all our members optimize processes, reduce costs, increase profitability, and position themselves effectively in the market.
One of the HUB’s roles is overseeing strategic reports. What kinds of reports are these, and how do you ensure they provide valuable insights to HUB members and clients?
These reports serve as decision-making tools, helping members anticipate industry trends and opportunities, innovate their business models, and optimize their strategies within the proptech space. We create exclusive “bite-sized” reports for our members covering the sector, neighboring countries, and how technology is transforming those markets and ours—Spain. We adapt based on what our members need or what we believe will be most helpful to them.
We recently released our 2025 Annual Trends Report. This report is full of valuable insights gathered throughout the year, based on events we’ve attended, news stories, and reports published by global institutions. We analyze and synthesize this information. The report covers the macroenvironment—what’s happening politically, economically, demographically, and within the industry—since all of this impacts the real estate sector. Then we delve into proptech, analyzing progress and major investment milestones, and finally present annual trends along with existing market solutions that address those trends. The report offers a clear view of what’s currently happening and what’s expected in the near-to-mid future.
We also offer the report as a workshop format for different organizations—it’s not exclusive to members. Innomads maintains close contact with major players in the proptech space. That’s why we have strong relationships with industry players such as API Center, companies like CBRE, and we have a partnership with the Barcelona Finance HUB by Aticco, as well as other entities like CSIM and the Real Estate Services Cluster. Ultimately, we believe it’s better to collaborate and contribute together than to go it alone.
Networking is essential for Innomads. How do you foster strategic relationships between startups, institutions, real estate companies, and other key players in the ecosystem?
Our main goal is to stay up to date with what’s happening every day, and to do that, we either reach out directly to companies we’re interested in, or they contact us. Events are also key—not only attending and participating but also organizing them. One of our most effective formats is speed dating. We usually host one per year for our members, and it often leads to very interesting synergies. We also organize webinars with other companies on relevant topics, open for anyone to attend free of charge. They’re engaging and insightful.
Female representation in your company is significant. How does this diversity impact innovation, company culture, and project development?
It’s true that there aren’t many women in this sector, but their numbers are steadily growing—and we love to see it. In our specific case, two women lead the HUB: myself and my colleague Sofía Maragliano. We both believe that female presence at Innomads is not just a reflection of our values but a key part of how we innovate. Diversity—especially gender diversity—enriches the perspectives from which we tackle the sector’s challenges.
“Diversity—especially gender diversity—enriches the perspectives from which we tackle the sector’s challenges”
What are the main trends and key technologies shaping the future of proptech?
Undoubtedly, and as everyone’s saying, Artificial Intelligence and sustainability are leading the way. AI has been around for years, but now we’re becoming more aware of how essential it is in our daily operations. At Innomads, we’ve noticed a huge surge in chatbot development. Companies are trying to integrate conversational AI into their systems, but we’re seeing efforts to move beyond simple bots that just guide you to an answer. The goal is to create assistants that can make calls, redirect them, and sound convincingly human. In this space, cybersecurity is also becoming very prominent. Other notable trends include asset tokenization and everything related to coworking, coliving, and flexliving. Lifestyles and needs are changing—and that’s being reflected in how we live.
What projects or initiatives does Innomads have in the works to continue leading digitalization and transformation in the real estate sector?
We want more companies to become part of the Innomads family so we can share what we all know with each other. We always aim to support startups, and lately, we’ve been focusing our efforts on finding ways to support those startups or projects that are just getting started—those that lack the necessary funding or haven’t fully fleshed out their ideas yet. We’re working on a new service to include in our offerings, designed with input from expert collaborators, to provide added value to our members and promote the growth of new, disruptive solutions in the sector.
At Innomads, we’ll continue sharing our knowledge, and we want to leave everyone with a very important message: Companies that are part of the proptech sector must stay united, because we believe that change starts with us if we want to bring it to more traditional firms.
