��

��

Tell Me About Yourself and UpCodes

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I’m a software engineer by training, and I’ve always been interested in technology, whether that’s new science or software systems. I co-founded UpCodes with my brother Scott, who’s an architect. He saw firsthand how difficult it was to navigate building codes in practice; I saw a systems problem hiding in plain sight.

UpCodes started as a way to make building codes searchable and accessible, but it’s grown into something broader: helping people understand and apply the law more clearly. At its core, the company is about reducing friction in an industry where clarity, accuracy, and safety really matter.

��

What Inspired You To Start UpCodes, and What Problem Were You Trying To Solve?

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The spark came from discussions with my brother Scott, who would spend hours digging through PDFs and physical books just to answer basic compliance questions. The information existed, but it wasn’t structured, searchable, or even reliably accessible. In many cases, the law itself wasn’t freely available online.

That disconnect bothered us. It seemed like a silly problem to be struggling with in the 21st century. Putting the law online and making it searchable was just very obvious, and we couldn’t understand why it hadn’t been done.

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What Has Been Your Biggest Challenge So Far, and How Did You Overcome It?

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We soon found out why the law was not free. There were groups who thought they owned the text of the law given they had been involved in authoring it.

One of these law publishers sued us soon after starting. Lawsuits in the US are tremendously expensive, long and stressful. The judicial system favors big incumbents who can bury innovative startups in legal fees.

It was only through venture capital that we were able to survive the onslaught of the early years. Being physically present in San Francisco was critical for that, at least back in 2017.

��

Can You Describe a Pivotal Moment That Significantly Shaped the Direction of UpCodes?

��

A turning point was realizing that access alone wasn’t enough. Making codes searchable solved part of the problem, but applying them correctly across real projects required deeper intelligence.

Construction has near-infinite variation, and hard-coded rules can only go so far. That’s when it became clear that structured data and AI were the answers to scale understanding responsibly. Importantly, AI wasn’t the starting point; it was the result of listening to the problem. That shift reframed UpCodes from a reference tool into a system that actively supports professional judgment.

��

How Do You Define Success?

��

For your business:��Success means being trusted. If professionals rely on our tools when the stakes are high (safety, legality, cost), that tells us we’re doing something right. And generally surviving and growing; the conversion funnel is pretty harsh.

As a founder:��In my opinion, the most important thing a founder can do is stick around. The journey can be pretty gruelling and stressful at times. A startup’s success is mostly luck, but you do also have to play your cards right and endure a lot. In the early years, we never imagined UpCodes growing this big. We did get lucky.

��

What Advice Would You Give To Someone Thinking About Launching Their Own Startup?

��

Start with the problem, not the technology. It’s tempting to fall in love with a solution (especially with something as powerful as AI), but that’s usually backwards.

Look for something that frustrates you deeply, something you’d want fixed even if it weren’t fashionable and glamorous. Then ask what approach actually fits. At UpCodes, if AI hadn’t been the right tool, we wouldn’t have used it. The best startups I’ve seen are driven by clarity of purpose, not by chasing trends.

��

What’s Next for UpCodes? Any Exciting Developments We Should Watch Out For?

��

We’re focused on continuing to turn static rules into usable systems. That means helping professionals move not just from research to answers, but from answers into real decisions: where requirements, intent, and documentation stay connected instead of breaking apart across tools.

More broadly, we’re interested in how better access to the law can unlock safer, faster, and more equitable outcomes, especially in housing and infrastructure. The details will evolve, but the direction stays the same: reduce handoffs, reduce guesswork, and help teams carry clarity from early design all the way through execution.

��

Want to be featured as 91̽��’s Founder of the Week? Find out more about this weekly feature and how to get involved .

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Founder’s 5 with Garrett Reynolds

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Want to know more about the man behind UpCodes? Here’s 91̽��’s exclusive Founder’s Five with Garrett Reynolds.

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Favourite business tool

��

As the CTO, I love linters (automatic code checkers) and automated test suites (tests that check to make sure the code does what you think it does over time). We use Ruff for Python. I think companies tend to underinvest in these guardrails.

��

One lesson you learned the hard way?

��

Let people “try and fail” to some extent. As a founder, I kiboshed an idea for a new feature the team had for years, but finally someone joined who really pushed hard. I decided to let them do it since it wouldn’t take too long to try it. Turns out I was wrong, and it was our best-converting feature ever. Even if it had failed, there would have been good learnings.

��

One future trend you’re watching?

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AI automating more coding work. Coding is itself automation, so once the automation gets more automated, things could move really fast.

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One quote you live by

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I like thinking about the Steve Jobs quote: “We don’t make most of the food we eat, we don’t grow it, anyway. We wear clothes other people make, we speak a language other people developed, we use mathematics other people evolved and spent their lives building. I mean, we’re constantly taking things. It’s a wonderful, ecstatic feeling to create something and put it into the pool of human experience and knowledge.”

��

One book/podcast you recommend

��

“Homo Deus” by Yuval Noah Harari. Great exploration of the potential of technological progress.

��

Want to be featured as 91̽��’s Founder of the Week? Know someone who deserves to be recognised as a founder making waves in the startup landscape? Find out more about this weekly feature and how to get involved .

The post Founder Of The Week: Garrett Reynolds appeared first on 91̽��.

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Tell Me About Yourself and Cera

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I’m an NHS doctor by background, and I’ve always been passionate about finding ways to improve healthcare outcomes through technology. I launched Cera to help create a more modern, preventative approach to care that improves safety, quality, and sustainability across the health system.

Since 2016, we’ve been using technology, including AI and robotics, to shift care away from hospitals and into community-based settings, building a model of healthcare that works for an ageing population.

Today, Cera operates at national scale, delivering millions of tech-enabled visits every month to support an ageing population and reduce pressure on the NHS.

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What Inspired You To Start Cera, and What Problem Were You Trying To Solve?

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In 2016, my mother fell and fractured her back, and I was shocked to discover that tracking a food delivery or taxi ride was easier than monitoring her health and care. It became clear to me how fragmented and outdated the care system was, and how far it lagged behind other sectors.

I felt strongly that care needed to modernise and learn from the digital revolution to give older people like my mum the quality of care they deserved. I set about using technology to build a better model—one that delivers more healthcare services at home and addresses some of the NHS’s biggest challenges.

Since then, Cera has evolved into a fully regulated healthcare provider, using AI and data to shift from reactive crisis management to a preventative model. In doing so, we’ve reduced patient hospitalisations by 70%. What drives me every day is using technology to strengthen the health system that has meant so much to me personally.

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What Has Been Your Biggest Challenge So Far, and How Did You Overcome It?

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Transitioning from the risk-averse world of medicine to the high-stakes reality of entrepreneurship was a steep learning curve. I founded Cera with almost no business experience – I’d never led a full-time team or worked in a company before.
Navigating those initial “growing pains” was a steep learning curve. We had to build our technology, recruit thousands of staff and secure regulatory accreditation—all from scratch. Scaling from zero meant figuring out everything from office space to training protocols overnight. It taught me that passion and persistence often outweigh a traditional business background.

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Can You Describe a Pivotal Moment That Significantly Shaped the Direction of Your Startup?

��

A pivotal time came when the COVID-19 pandemic created a dramatic surge in demand for home care and I saw an opportunity to make a difference.

We launched an initiative to recruit people who’d lost their jobs, and train them up as carers, growing the care talent pool and expanding access to care at a critical time for older and vulnerable people. Within 18 months, we’d recruited 10,000 new people into the sector, and the Government even licensed our recruitment technology to other care companies, scaling our impact across 2,000 businesses. This demonstrated how digital health solutions can rapidly scale to solve systemic problems and improve health outcomes.

��

How Do You Define Success?

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For your business:��For us, success means delivering impact at scale—improving outcomes for people while strengthening the healthcare system. It’s about using technology to shift care from reactive crisis management to prevention, expand access, and do so in a clinically safe and economically sustainable way.

2025 was a strong reflection of that definition in practice. Independent analysis confirmed we’ve saved the NHS and Government more than £1 billion to date, and we delivered our 100 millionth patient visit alongside 100-fold revenue growth. We are now scaling our care robotics platform following successful pilots, while external recognition from TIME Magazine and Newsweek validates both our impact and our AI model.

As a founder:��A particular moment that stands out is when we first launched our AI tool that predicts and prevents hospitalisations. That very day we spotted someone who was at high risk of having an infection, and got them antibiotics, avoiding them potentially needing to go to hospital days later. This showed our model in action, and how it can make a difference to people’s lives on an individual level. It meant a lot to me on a personal level and pioneering meaningful change is what keeps me driven.

��

What Advice Would You Give To Someone Thinking About Launching Their Own Startup?

��

Start with “why” and solve a problem that truly matters to you. Deep mission-alignment provides the energy to push through difficult phases; chasing pure financial gain rarely sustains a founder or produces a transformational company.
Take your time early on—patience and market clarity at the outset save years of pain later. Once you begin building, hire people better than you. Complement your weaknesses with their strengths and stay adaptable as the company’s needs evolve. Finally, persevere. I’m a firm believer that passion and persistence often outweigh raw capability in the long run.

��

What’s Next for Cera? Any Exciting Developments We Should Watch Out For?

��

Cera is pioneering the next generation of healthcare through thousands of AI agents that transform workforce recruitment, productivity and retention. We are now licensing these tools to other sectors facing staffing challenges.
We are also broadening the range of services available in the home, including nursing, physiotherapy and rehabilitation, as well as expanding geographically.

In 2026, we’ll announce major research partnerships with life sciences organisations, powered by our 250-billion-point dataset, providing longitudinal insights into diseases like dementia and cancer. By bringing trials into the home, we’re closing the “participation gap” for over-65s. Additionally, our ‘Back to Work’ programme continues to scale, creating thousands of tech-enabled jobs for the long-term unemployed and younger people, building a sustainable and accessible future care talent pool.

��

Founder’s Five with Dr. Ben Maruthappu

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Without further ado, here is our exclusive Founder’s Five with Dr. Ben Maruthappu.

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1. Favourite business tool

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Google Gemini.

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2. One lesson you learned the hard way

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We started as an online marketplace, but learned quickly that tech alone wasn’t enough. To make a real difference, we had to provide care ourselves and redesign how it’s delivered — it was a healthy reminder to focus on solving actual problems in the sector, rather than just build smart technology which may not be impactful.

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3. One future trend you’re watching

��

Early Warning for Mental Wellbeing

I’m keeping a close eye on AI-driven behavioral health. We’re getting very good at predicting physical falls, but the next frontier is predicting social declines. By spotting tiny changes in a person’s daily routine or speech patterns, AI can alert us to loneliness or the very early signs of dementia months before a human might notice. It’s about treating the mind as proactively as we treat the body.

��

4. One quote you live by

��

“Chance favours the prepared mind” — Louis Pasteur.

5. One Book or Podcast you recommend

��

“The 4-Hour Work Week” — Timothy Ferriss.

The post Founder Of The Week: Dr. Ben Maruthappu appeared first on 91̽��.

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Tell Me About Yourself and Green Project Technologies��

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My name is Sam Stark, and I have a background in sustainability and finance. I founded Green Project Technologies after working on the energy team at Goldman Sachs, where I saw firsthand how far many global corporations were from meeting their climate commitments. I started Green Project in 2021 with a few college friends and have since grown it to more than 75 employees.

Our mission is to help companies decarbonise the most difficult area to address – supply chains. We operate across three continents and five countries, serving thousands of companies, including large multinationals and global leaders.

Personally, I am an avid hiker and outdoor enthusiast, and I have been recognised as a Forbes 30 Under 30 and Huffington Post 20 Under 20 honoree.

��

What Inspired You To Start Green Project Technologies and What Problem Were You Trying To Solve?

��

I wanted to reduce the impact of climate change but wanted to find help businesses build a sustainability strategy that does not come at the expense of productivity and performance. What I saw missing in the market was alignment between sustainability and profitability.

Too often, companies view climate action as a cost rather than an opportunity. I believed supply chains were the ideal place to change that mindset, since they represent both a major source of emissions and a major lever for cost savings, resilience, and efficiency. Green Project was founded to prove that doing the right thing for the environment can also create measurable business value.

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What Has Been Your Biggest Challenge So Far, and How Did You Overcome It?

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One of our biggest challenges has been navigating the politicisation of climate change and the resulting shifts in the regulatory environment. These changes can quickly impact how companies prioritise sustainability initiatives. To address this, we evolved our positioning from being purely a sustainability company to becoming a supply chain resilience and efficiency partner.

By helping businesses reduce costs, strengthen supplier relationships, and improve operational efficiency, we ensured our value proposition remained relevant regardless of regulatory trends, while still delivering meaningful carbon reduction outcomes.

��

Can You Describe a Pivotal Moment That Significantly Shaped the Direction of Green Project Technologies?

��

A pivotal moment for Green Project came in 2023 when we accepted a majority investment from the Dutch company ACT Group. This partnership provided growth capital, but more importantly, it expanded our capabilities. Prior to the investment, our core focus was on measuring carbon emissions. ACT brought deep expertise on the reduction side, allowing us to move from insight to action. This shift fundamentally changed our offering by enabling clients not only to understand their emissions, but to actively reduce them at scale.

��

How Do You Define Success?

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For your business: Success for the business is measured by two closely linked metrics – revenue generated and carbon emissions reduced. The more we grow, the more emissions we help eliminate, which means commercial success directly translates into environmental impact.

As a founder:��Personally, success means continuing to adapt as the company evolves. As we scale, my role has shifted from hands-on execution to leading and empowering people. Embracing new tools like AI across the business is one way I ensure I am growing alongside the company.

��

What Advice Would You Give To Someone Thinking About Launching Their Own Startup?

��

It has never been easier to start a company, especially with the acceleration of AI tools that lower costs and speed up execution. Because of that, the most important thing is not the technology, but finding a real problem that customers genuinely care about. Focus on solving something painful and measurable, talk to customers early, and iterate quickly. Speed and learning matter more than perfection in the early stages.

��

What’s Next for Green Project Technologies? Any Exciting Developments We Should Watch Out For?

��

We are transforming Green Project into an AI-first company. We are deploying agents across every business unit, from engineering and customer success to sales and operations. Internally, this means faster development and better decision-making.

For clients, AI will sit at the center of their experience. A customer will be able to input their business type and supplier locations and instantly receive a tailored dashboard, insights, and recommendations powered by AI, making decarbonisation simpler and more actionable.

��

Founder’s Five with Sam Stark

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Without further ado, here is our exclusive Founder’s Five with Sam Stark.

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1. Favourite business tool

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HubSpot. It may sound basic, but a clean and intuitive CRM is essential for any B2B business. Too many CRMs are overly complex, which delays proper sales hygiene and leads to inaccurate reporting. HubSpot strikes the right balance between power and usability.

��

2. One lesson you learned the hard way

��

It is always worth investing time in properly teaching and onboarding new employees. While it can feel slower in the short term, strong onboarding creates leverage and scale that no founder can achieve alone.

��

3. One future trend you’re watching

��

The rapid evolution of AI agents and how they will fundamentally change how work is done across every function, not just engineering.

��

4. One quote you live by

��

“Move fast and break things.” Startups win by moving faster than large incumbents. You do not need to be perfect; you just need to be right enough and learn quickly.

��

5. One Book or Podcast you recommend

“The AI Daily Brief”. It is a great way to stay informed on a space that is changing so quickly that even week-to-week developments can reshape what is possible.

��

The post Founder Of The Week: Sam Stark appeared first on 91̽��.

��

A new Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) often arrives with a mandate to secure their organisation, but in practice, they walk headfirst into the fog of war without the facts. While security leaders may ultimately be held accountable for risk decisions, they normally don’t have the business data to support their decisions. Unless you like Enron-inspired math, you can’t calculate the cost of a breach if you don’t know which systems generate revenue, or how much time the business can survive without that revenue. This helps explain why CISOs have a normal tenure of 18 – 24 months.

For CISOs with a technical background, the most frequent action is to start by assessing technical controls, often against one or more control frameworks. This is pointless without an understanding of what those controls are supposed to protect. A CISO might have their team spend weeks scanning the environment for technical vulnerabilities, but when that team can’t tell the difference between an internal support tool and a payment gateway that lacks a documented recovery plan, the resulting data are of limited use.

Before managing risk, a new leader must establish three basic documents and secure agreements with the other business leaders to write down their decisions. These documents help connect technology directly to revenue streams and operational continuity, and make cybersecurity a business function grounded in reality. Sample document templates are included with this article for readers to adapt for their own needs.

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The Discovery Phase

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A CISO shouldn’t sound like an auditor hoping for findings, so identifying these gaps requires a shift in conversation tone from day one. The CISO should pose questions that are reasonable for a new business leader to ask. Asking “Which process generates the most revenue per hour?” or “If that system went down tomorrow, who owns the recovery?” can produce meaningful answers.

If other executives pause while answering or give conflicting responses, this shows historically misaligned expectations. When executives can’t name the owner of a critical process or estimate the financial impact of downtime, the organisation is flying partially blind. Executives who claim that “the new CISO’s responsible” are more troubling. In both cases, it shows that risk management is based on assumptions rather than facts.

By listening to the uncertainty in other executives’ voices, the CISO gathers intelligence needed to justify the creation of new documentation. The goal isn’t to assign blame for missing data but to highlight the need to have a clearer picture of the business. This approach builds trust, and establishes the need for the collaborative work required to document processes, systems, and dependencies. As an added bonus, if your organisation needed to comply with DORA, you already likely have most of these facts. Finally, much this is work that the CISO and other business leaders will delegate to their teams for further investigation.

��

Document 1: The Business Process Catalogue

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serves is the record of what the organisation actually does, who owns what, and the monetary value per unit of time. This document is important because you can’t mathematically calculate risk impact without knowing revenue at risk. It uplevels the conversation from incomprehensible “cyber threats” to concrete financial exposure that other executives understand.

Key fields in this catalog include the process name, the designated owner, revenue generated per hour or day, maximum tolerable downtime, and the specific business systems involved. The catalog uses the Responsibility Assignment Matrix principle, which requires every process to have a single accountable owner rather than a committee. This is meant to avoid decision paralysis during times of crisis.

When this data exists, it changes the conversation. A request to patch a server shifts from “We need to fix some CVSS 9.2 vulnerability” to “This patch protects a process generating $200,000 an hour.” That clarity gets other executives’ attention, and justifies resource allocation.

Document 2: The Business Systems Inventory

��

is a bridge between business processes and the technology that they’re made out of. While the Process Catalog defines value, the Systems Inventory documents the load-bearing applications and platforms. Relying on the catalog alone doesn’t work, because it intentionally doesn’t include technical dependencies or vendor relationships required to maintain or restore operations.

For first-party systems, the inventory must capture operational costs, data classification levels, and recovery objectives.
For third-party systems, fields include vendor contact information, contract location, data flow descriptions, integration dependencies, and emergency support contacts.

The RACI structure carries forward here as well. If the VP of Sales is accountable for the sales process, they’re also accountable for the CRM system that supports their business function.

This document can be re-used during incident response. When a key system fails at 2 AM on a bank holiday, the IR team needs the vendor’s phone number. They can’t waste time searching for the right contact, or wondering which executives need to be briefed.

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Document 3: The Component Ledger

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decomposes each business system into its piece parts, covering both first-party code and third-party services. Systems are rarely granular enough for operational decision management. A single “Salesforce integration” might have an API, an identity provider, a data pipeline and an email service. Each of these components has its own vendor, failure mode, and security posture.

First-party components require version numbers, build locations, and enough data to be able to restore services, whether due to a disaster or data breach.

Third-party components require vendor contacts, service level agreements, and exit strategies to manage supply chain risk.

This level of detail is needed because an organisation is only as secure as its weakest component. When a vulnerability is announced in a software library, the Component Ledger allows the security team to quickly see which systems and business processes are affected. This enables defensible, fact-based decisions about patching priorities or risk acceptance decisions.

How the Three Documents Work Together

��

These three documents function as a cascading framework for ongoing business risk management.

• The Process Catalog defines business value.
• The System Inventory maps the supporting technology.
• The Component Ledger identifies hidden dependencies and risk centralisation.

Every risk calculation is visible because the data lineage is fully documented with sign-offs, which makes the math easy:

• When a component fails, you can trace it to the business system
• Then you trace the system to the process
• Finally, you reach the revenue figure, without hand-waving or guessing

This approach isn’t a multi-year maturity project or a tool to buy from a vendor, either; it’s a 100-day stabilisation exercise based on conversations, and focused on supporting revenue.

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From Guessing to Governing

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The first 100 days are about replacing anxiety with clarity. These three documents give you the basic facts to make decisions, the language to justify budgets, and the credibility to lead alongside other executives. Start with your three highest-revenue processes and build outward. This foundation ensures your future security investments support long-term business goals.

The post The Three Documents Every New CISO Needs (That Nobody Hands You) appeared first on 91̽��.

But increasingly, the next wave of AI startups is trying to solve that problem not by creating more standalone tools, but by building infrastructure that connects everything together. That is the space is betting on.

The AI technology company has announced a $25 million funding round led by IXC3, part of Azimut Group, as it looks to expand its AI-driven operating infrastructure across the U.S. SMB market. The company says the funding will support product expansion, adoption of agentic AI tools and a broader acquisition strategy focused on SaaS businesses and marketing agencies across the United States.

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Moving Beyond Just “Another AI Tool”

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Webidoo’s pitch is relatively simple: most small businesses do not need more software. They need fewer gaps between insight and action.

According to the company, the average SMB now uses around 20 different software tools across sales, marketing, operations and customer management. The problem is that many of these platforms do not integrate properly, creating fragmented workflows and operational inefficiencies.

“The average small business runs 20 tools that don’t talk to each other. We’re not building tool number 21. We’re building the layer that finally makes them all work together,” said Giovanni Farese, CEO of Webidoo.

Rather than positioning itself as another AI assistant or chatbot platform, Webidoo describes its technology as an “AI operating layer” designed to automate execution across existing systems.

Its ecosystem currently includes platforms called Jooice, Groow and Welpy, which are designed to support business functions across marketing, sales and operations.

��

SMBs Are Becoming The Next Big AI Battleground, Here’s Why

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Much of the AI industry’s attention over the past two years has focused on enterprise adoption. But smaller businesses represent a huge untapped market, particularly companies that lack internal engineering teams or the budget to build custom AI infrastructure.

That creates an interesting opportunity for companies that can package AI into something practical and easy to deploy.

“For years, small and medium-sized businesses have been asked to compete in a digital economy without access to the tools that could truly level the playing field. What we are building at Webidoo is not just another AI product suite, but an operating layer that gives SMBs the kind of speed, intelligence, and execution power that was once reserved for much larger companies. This funding gives us the ability to scale that mission faster, especially in the U.S.,” Farese said.

The company’s expansion strategy is heavily focused on North America, with its Chicago office acting as the centre for research, business development and account management. Webidoo says it already works with hundreds of SMBs across the region.

��

AI Adoption By Means of Acquisition

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One of the more interesting aspects of Webidoo’s strategy is its acquisition plan.��The company intends to acquire SaaS businesses and marketing agencies whose customer bases and operational workflows can be strengthened using Webidoo’s AI infrastructure. Instead of growing purely through software subscriptions, the company appears to be building distribution directly into its expansion model.

That reflects a wider trend emerging across the AI market, where companies are increasingly looking for ways to integrate AI directly into existing business relationships rather than relying on standalone adoption.

Ricky Gordon, CPO of Webidoo, said the company’s focus is on reducing the complexity that often slows down AI implementation for smaller businesses.

“Most SMBs do not need more complexity. They need technology that helps them act,” Gordon said. “That is the role Jooice, Welpy, and Groow are designed to play.”

��

Building AI Around Execution

��

Webidoo is also entering this next stage from a relatively strong financial position compared to many early-stage AI companies. In 2025, the company reported more than $18 million in revenue and over $3 million in EBITDA while continuing to invest in R&D and product development.

The bigger question now is whether businesses actually want another layer of AI infrastructure, or whether simplifying adoption alone is enough to drive long-term loyalty in an increasingly crowded market.

Still, as AI shifts from experimentation toward operational deployment, startups focused on automation, orchestration and execution may become some of the most important companies in the space – especially for smaller businesses trying to compete with enterprise-level technology without enterprise-level budgets.

The post Webidoo Raises $25 Million To Build An AI “Operating Layer” For SMBs appeared first on 91̽��.

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��

Tell Me About Yourself and Purbeck Insurance

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I’m a chartered accountant and did my training with Deloitte where I spent time in the financial services M&A advisory team. Outside of work I’m a keen sportsman both playing and watching lots of different sports. I also run when I can, near my Cambridgeshire home and love to cook for my wife and young family, as a good way to wind down after a long day.

Purbeck Insurance Services is a Managing General Agent in the UK. That means we act like a mini-insurance company for a larger insurer, with authority to underwrite our personal guarantee insurance product, issue policies, and manage claims. This has worked very well for us over the past 8.5 years. To date we have insured over 5000 small business owners and directors on £700million of personal guarantees. We still have no direct competition in the UK and our products/services are unique in that respect.

A highlight of 2025 was winning MGA of the year (sub 100 employees category) at the Insurance Times Awards.

��

What Inspired You To Start Purbeck Insurance, and What Problem Were You Trying To Solve?

��

It was back when I was working with SMEs at Deloitte I could see what a big barrier personal guarantees for business loans were to directors.These companies wanted to grow and needed finance but that meant a lot of risk on the shoulders of one or two individuals. I knew there must be a way to reduce that risk so that loan decisions could be made with more confidence. Insurance seemed the obvious solution so we developed personal guarantee insurance to help reduce the friction when signing a personal guarantee in support of business finance.

We also wanted to make sure that if a client did get into financial difficulty, we had support services in place to help them save their business or come out of an insolvency process in the best way possible. We therefore built a range of services that are triggered at the point a client contacts us to confirm they are in financial distress, from mentoring support to insolvency practioners. This is all part of cover provided by the policy.

Working in corporate finance helped in terms of the understanding of the finance process and together with the co-founders we devised this product to support businesses in their growth objectives.

��

What Has Been Your Biggest Challenge So Far, and How Did You Overcome It?

��

We’ve had a few challenges and headwinds to overcome. Given the nature of our product which is linked to the success of SMEs that we support we’ve had to navigate the pandemic, cost-of-living crisis, changes in regulation, Brexit etc. We are also sector agnostic so we need to be alive and aware of issues our client face in each of their own industries.

Another challenge for us is that as an insurance intermediary (undertaking distribution, underwriting, policy servicing and claims handling process) we are trying to create a market at the same time. So we are investing heavily to spread the awareness of our products/services but also to educate individuals on personal guarantees – what they are, what they mean and the risks of signing these contracts.

��

Can You Describe a Pivotal Moment That Significantly Shaped the Direction of Purbeck Insurance?

��

The launch itself was a great accolade by taking a hypothetical and regulated product straight into market – we had no real comparables to benchmark how the product should look, how it should work, what the customer journey should be, how to assess/rate risk and operationally how to support our clients.

��

��

How Do You Define Success?

��

As a business:��Building a business with a strong culture and where our team have high satisfaction; I feel supporting the business in that way is so important and giving people the platform to grow and pursue their own ambitions.

As a founder:��To enjoy what I do and to continue to push boundaries and not to rest on our laurels. I enjoy my work but with a young family as well I think striking the right balance to keep focused with work but not to lose sight of the present and enjoy time with family and friends.

��

What Advice Would You Give To Someone Thinking About Launching Their Own Startup?

��

Be brave and bold. Have conviction in what you want to do but also don’t be afraid to adapt and evolve the original idea – if I look back at the original business plan we put together in 2016, the product today and how we do things look quite different to what we expected and I think having that agility is important.

If you don’t try, you’ll never know and if it doesn’t work the first time then use that experience for the next idea.

��

What’s next for your company? Any exciting developments we should watch out for?

��

International expansion, increasing our PGI product offering to support other underserved PG markets and launching our own offshore reinsurance captive.

Want to be featured as 91̽��’s Founder of the Week? Find out more about this weekly feature and how to get involved .

��

Founder’s 5 with Todd Davison

��

Here is the exclusive 91̽��’s Founder’s Five with Todd Davison.

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Favourite business tool

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There are some great tools out there – I think the online accounting platforms are great – we use Xero and also some of the expense tools (e.g. Soldo) are great as well.

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One lesson you learned the hard way?

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Don’t click on phishing emails!

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One future trend you’re watching?

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Continued automation in the insurance industry – obviously, AI is a hot topic across all verticals.

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One quote you live by

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“In all walks of life”– look after people who look after you.

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One book/podcast you recommend

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Shoedog by Phil Knight – I think it shows the power of having a diverse group of people at the decision-making stage and the impact of taking calculated risks

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Want to be featured as 91̽��’s Founder of the Week? Know someone who deserves to be recognised as a founder making waves in the startup landscape? Find out more about this weekly feature and how to get involved .

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And to some extent, those fears are very much understandable. Across industries, businesses are already reducing headcount, automating workflows and experimenting with AI agents capable of replacing parts of human labour. In some sectors, particularly customer service, administration and junior-level operational roles, the impact is already visible.

But a growing number of business leaders and are arguing that companies may be approaching AI entirely the wrong way.

Instead of replacing people with AI, what if businesses used AI to remove the repetitive, time-consuming and low-value parts of work, while allowing employees to focus on the areas where humans still outperform machines? What if AI didn’t mean getting rid of people but rather changing their jobs and extending their output?

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The Shift From Replacement To Reinvention

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The idea behind augmentation is relatively simple. AI handles the administrative burden, the repetitive processing and the “grunt work”, while people focus on creativity, judgement, strategy, relationships and decision-making. This��approach is already taking shape across industries.

At inDrive, Dr. Roman Atachiants says over 80% of the workforce already uses AI daily, but not to eliminate jobs. Instead, AI is being used to support teams with time-consuming tasks while employees focus on more complex work requiring empathy and human judgement.

The same pattern is emerging in sectors like finance, law, cybersecurity and marketing. Paul Lodder from Dext argues that AI is transforming accounting by automating manual data entry and administrative processes, allowing accountants to move into more strategic advisory roles. Instead of spending hours processing spreadsheets, they can now focus on helping SMEs navigate uncertainty, cash flow planning and business strategy.

For many experts, this is where the real long-term value of AI sits – not in laying off staff and having advanced technology do the work they used to do, but in going step beyond that and freeing up humans to do so much more than anyone ever had time or capacity for. According to Cassandra MacDonald of BPP, organisations focused purely on replacing jobs are “missing the bigger opportunity”. While AI can remove repetitive tasks, she argues that skills like “critical thinking, empathy, ethical judgment and collaboration” are becoming even more valuable as AI adoption grows.

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A Potential Productivity Boom We Should Be Focusing On

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The side of the conversation that often gets overlooked is potentially the most important.��Historically, major technological shifts haven’t just reduced labour. They’ve expanded what businesses are capable of doing, and��.

If teams can complete administrative work faster, reduce bottlenecks and automate repetitive tasks, businesses suddenly gain something valuable: capacity. That means more time, more output and more room for innovation.

Arturo Buzzalino at Epico ddescribes this as a potential “renaissance of innovation”, arguing that AI could create massive efficiency gains while freeing people to focus on improving systems, solving problems and developing new ideas.

Indeed, Matt Sherwen of Sherwen Studios makes a similar point, saying the real opportunity is not simply maintaining the same output with fewer people, but expanding what businesses can actually deliver.

That may ultimately become the biggest competitive divide of the AI era – companies that use AI purely to reduce costs and those that��will use it to extend capabilities.

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Human Skills May Become More, Not Less, Valuable

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Ironically, the rise of AI may also increase demand for distinctly human skills.��As AI-generated content, analysis and recommendations become easier to produce, businesses may place even greater value on people capable of interpreting nuance, building trust and exercising judgement.

That’s especially true in industries built around relationships.��Kate Buckley from Twenty7tec argues that in financial advice, trust remains central to every client interaction. AI can process data and reduce administrative work, but it cannot replicate reassurance, emotional understanding or contextual decision-making.

Similarly, Heather Delaney of Gallium Ventures warns that relying too heavily on AI risks creating an industry flooded with “AI slop” and weak creative work.

Indeed, the concern isn’t necessarily that AI will replace expertise. Rather, it’s that��businesses chasing short-term efficiency gains may accidentally weaken the very human capabilities that make organisations valuable in the first place.

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Striking the Right Balance

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That doesn’t mean augmentation is guaranteed – not in the slightest. Many companies are still approaching AI primarily as a cost-cutting exercise, particularly under economic pressure. And there are legitimate concerns about what happens to junior roles when AI absorbs entry-level administrative work.

Several experts also warn that businesses risk over-relying on AI systems that still hallucinate, reinforce bias and lack contextual understanding.

Brett Candon from Dropzone AI argues that AI works best in “human-in-the-loop workflows”, where AI accelerates investigation and surfaces information, but humans remain responsible for judgement and accountability.

That balance may become increasingly important. Because while AI can generate answers at extraordinary speed, it still cannot fully replicate experience, intuition or human reasoning.

And despite all the predictions about replacement, those may ultimately become the most valuable skills in the workforce.

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Experts:

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• Cassandra MacDonald: Dean of School of Technology, BPP
• Brett Candon: VP International at Dropzone AI
• Laura Moss: Managing Partner at Parisi
• Dr. Roman Atachiants: Data and AI Architect at inDrive
• Kate Buckley: Chief Revenue Officer, Twenty7tec
• Pat Murphy: Founder and CEO of MurphyCobb Associates
• Heather Delaney: Founder and MD of Gallium Ventures
• Peter Pugh Jones: EMEA Field CDO at Confluent
• Arturo Buzzalino: Chief Innovation Officer at Epicor
• Kevin Gaskell: Chair of ITS and former MD for Porsche, BMW and Lamborghini
• Matt Sherwen: Managing Director at Sherwen Studios

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Cassandra MacDonald, Dean of School of Technology, BPP

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“This view is not a pipe dream. Organisations that focus solely on AI replacing jobs are missing the bigger opportunity. While automation can and should remove certain tasks, particularly repetitive or data‑heavy ones, it cannot replace core human skills such as critical thinking, empathy, ethical judgment and collaboration. In fact, the paradox is that these skills are becoming more, not less, important as AI scales. While demand for some easily replaceable skills has declined, demand for others has more than doubled, suggesting AI is reshaping roles rather than eliminating them altogether.

“There is a genuine risk that organisations to reduce headcount will fall behind. The real value lies in redesigning roles so humans and AI complement each other, enabling higher‑quality outcomes, faster adaptation and more meaningful work. That combination creates a win-win situation for employees, customers and the organisation alike.”

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Brett Candon, VP International at Dropzone AI

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The fear that AI will replace people is understandable. We’ve already seen organisations use automation as a blunt instrument to cut costs. But treating AI as a substitute for human judgement is where things go wrong, particularly in high‑stakes areas like security.

There is a global shortage of experienced cyber professionals at the same time as alert volumes continue to grow. That combination has exposed a problem automation alone was never able to solve. AI is now addressing the scale issue by taking on repetitive, high‑volume work, allowing teams to focus on what only humans can do such as applying context, setting priorities, challenging assumptions and making accountable decisions.

This isn’t a pipe dream. We’re seeing organisations benefit from human‑in‑the‑loop workflows where AI surfaces signals, drafts recommendations and accelerates investigation, while people validate, steer and own the response. Instead of burning out from chasing needles in haystacks or missing critical signals, teams gain the time and clarity they need to think clearly and act decisively. If leaders use AI simply to maintain output with fewer people, they’ll save in the short term but pay later in risk. Augmentation allows companies to scale impact while keeping the responsibility with humans.

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For any questions, comments or features,��.

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Laura Moss, Managing Partner at Parisi

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“AI can absolutely speed things up and automate parts of what we do – and that’s genuinely useful. In what we do for example, it can stitch together data from multiple sources and pull-out insights that would take hours to compile manually. But someone still has to interpret that, add the ‘So What’ – what does this mean and what do we do about it. That’s where the expertise comes in, and that’s what clients are actually paying for.

“Many companies are still figuring out the right approach. The focus often leans toward cost-cutting, rather than thinking about how their people could use the extra time to do more valuable work.

“The risk of going too far too fast is also underestimated. You lose the middle layer – the experienced people who turn information into advice and who junior staff learn from every day. Clients still buy from people. They want the nuance, the expertise and human intelligence. AI can support all of that, but it can’t replace it.”

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Dr. Roman Atachiants, Data and AI Architect at inDrive��

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“At inDrive, we specifically focus on augmenting our workforce with AI. Over 80 percent of our workforce uses AI daily to help with time-consuming tasks rather than to eliminate roles. For example, 40% of our first-line customer support is now fully automated. We redirect those agents to handle complicated cases where human judgment and empathy truly matter instead of reducing our headcount.

“Another example is that our legal team recently used agentic AI to automate an internal process that previously required 16 lawyers working for three quarters.The AI reduced the time spent on this task by 85 percent, allowing our team to focus entirely on high-value legal analysis.

“The nuance here is setting realistic expectations about these efficiency gains. If a task took ten hours before, expect it to take a few hours with AI rather than ten minutes. There is no magic. This realistic reduction still provides immense benefits while maintaining the high standards that only human professionals can guarantee.”

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Kate Buckley, Chief Revenue Officer, Twenty7tec

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“The idea that AI should augment rather than replace people is not just plausible, it is critical, particularly in the mortgage and financial advice industry where trust sits at the centre of every interaction. Buying a home or making financial decisions is deeply personal. Clients are not just looking for information, they are looking for reassurance, context and someone who understands their situation. An adviser can hear hesitation in a voice, pick up on nuance in a conversation and adapt their approach in a way that technology simply cannot replicate. AI has a clear role to play in improving efficiency. It can process data faster, reduce administrative workload and surface insights that support better decision-making. But it cannot replace the human connection that underpins good advice. The firms that will succeed are those that use AI to give their people more time to focus on clients, not less. This is not about replacing expertise, it is about strengthening it, combining technology with human understanding to deliver better outcomes and build lasting trust.”

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For any questions, comments or features,��.

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Pat Murphy, Founder and CEO of MurphyCobb Associates

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“Research summaries, reporting, presentation building and structured production work like early copy development and concept support are exactly the kinds of tasks AI is absorbing first. The opportunity is that marketers can spend less time producing decks and more time on judgement, creativity, strategy and understanding human behaviour. That’s where competitive advantage will increasingly sit.

“Within the next five years most marketing teams are likely to look structurally different, with fewer production-heavy junior roles and more AI-augmented strategic roles. The organisations that get this evolution right will be the ones that treat AI as a capability multiplier, not just a cost-saving tool.

“Make AI part of the workflow, not an experiment – AI really can impact speed, cost, and scale simultaneously. However, unmanaged, it creates chaos. For me the difference is governance. In recent client work, AI has been most powerful not in replacing creativity, but in accelerating iteration – faster concepting, faster localisation, faster adaptation.”

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Heather Delaney, Founder and MD of Gallium Ventures

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“The most creative and impactful campaigns come from human hearts and minds, so we know that in PR & Marketing, AI won’t replace our human approach to creating campaigns and communications strategies; however, it can support us.

“The way to use AI to its fullest capability is to master the art of collaboration. LLMs haven’t yet reached the point of being completely trustworthy on their own, so the value of human input should not be disregarded. Whilst undeniably useful, AI is not, and should not, be the end-all, be-all. Making it such will create an unstable industry, where clients will receive bad work, freelancers will receive bad work, and before we know it, the foundational skills of PR and marketing will be long forgotten.

“Traditionally, industry juniors are tasked with the most administrative responsibilities of monitoring and reporting. The delegation of these tasks to AI should, excitingly, mean that juniors can get involved and contribute in a more impactful way, earlier on in their career. This has the power to change the trajectory of the industry’s career ladder as we know it, as long as the introduction of AI doesn’t reduce the number of entry-level jobs available.”

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Peter Pugh Jones, EMEA Field CDO at Confluent��

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“The human brain is incredible; a creation that we cannot simply replicate in data or AI.

“This means that while some repetitive roles are starting to be automated in sectors like finance and law, recreating an experienced, well-rounded business leader is a very different challenge. It’s also true that, even in less senior roles, the human touch is still a must — in customer service, for example.

“As such, it remains best practice for decision-makers to ground their choices in the context and evidence of their data, rather than offload the thinking behind them to an AI-driven system. Organisations should take a a hybrid approach in which AI handles the routine and allows humans to tackle the more intricate decisions — relying on technology to empower decision making, rather than absorb it.

“The real concern here is timely access to the data that grounds human expertise. Confluent’s Quick Thinking 2026 report has found that six in 10 business leaders find that data is too difficult to access at their level; a further 62% say that there simply isn’t the time to analyse data before they need to make their decision.

“AI doesn’t need to be able to apply specialist knowledge to every facet of the business. But it does need to be able to empower and enable the decision-makers that possess that expertise.”

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For any questions, comments or features,��.

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Arturo Buzzalino, Chief Innovation Officer at Epicor��

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“There’s obviously some anxiety among the workforce about the potential for AI to displace jobs, especially since it’s proving to be very effective in certain specific use cases.

“I’ve been working in AI for a long time, and I’ve built systems in the past that were even designed to replace certain types of roles—like in retail and other industries. But one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is this: you can’t succeed without the human element, especially when it comes to the strategic side of things.

“AI can accelerate the mundane, repetitive tasks, the kinds of work that humans aren’t particularly good at or don’t enjoy. But what we are good at is creativity, strategic thinking, and approaching problems from new angles. And those are exactly the qualities that become more valuable as AI takes on more of the grunt work.

“So actually, I believe we’re entering a kind of renaissance of innovation. As AI tools remove more of the tasks that slow us down—like combing through spreadsheets or routine reporting—people will have more freedom to focus on what really matters: improving systems, designing better processes, asking better questions. It shifts the focus from “finishing the task” to “how do we make this better?”

“I often say we’ll see a 10X gain in efficiency thanks to AI. But even more exciting, I think that will translate into a 100X gain in innovation, because it frees up human talent to do what it does best—not replace it, but amplify it.”

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Kevin Gaskell,��Chair of ITS and former MD for Porsche, BMW and Lamborghini

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“AI is not some mystical force destined to replace human endeavour; it is simply the latest in a long line of powerful tools. Like every tool before it, its value lies in how intelligently we choose to use it. The real prize is not wholesale automation, but the disciplined removal of routine low-value tasks that drain time and energy from capable people.

“When you free team members from that burden, you unlock something far more valuable: space to think, to create, to connect. That is where organisations differentiate themselves through insight, judgement, and genuinely personal service. Get the foundations right with robust, , and you create the platform upon which your people can excel, elevating performance and delivering experiences that are not just efficient, but distinctive and memorable.”

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Ella Broadbent, Senior PR Consultant and AI specialist at Petal & Co

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“As AI becomes more capable, it’s changing the nature of work rather than replacing it outright. The expectation is that AI will take on repetitive and time-consuming tasks, allowing people to focus on higher-value work. This raises important questions about entry-level roles, where much of this foundational work has traditionally been concentrated. However, similar concerns have emerged in previous shifts, such as the introduction of Google Search, which is now fully embedded in everyday work.

“The more significant shift is in skills. AI literacy is becoming essential, particularly in how problems are framed and how outputs are interpreted. Poorly structured prompts or unclear objectives consistently lead to weak results. As answers become easier to generate, the ability to ask better questions becomes more important than the answers themselves.

“There’s also a growing risk of confirmation bias. If AI is used only to validate existing thinking, it can reinforce assumptions rather than challenge them. This makes critical thinking even more important. AI should always be treated as a tool, not a source of truth.

“At the same time, generative AI tends to produce outputs that are “good enough”. While useful in many contexts, this creates a risk that organisations accept average quality and ‘AI slop’ without sufficient scrutiny. Human judgement is essential to recognise when higher standards are required and to refine outputs accordingly.

“This is where distinctly human capabilities become more valuable. Intuition, empathy, context and meaning remain difficult for AI to interpret. As a result, creativity, ethical reasoning and imagination are becoming more important in decision-making roles. The balance is shifting away from purely technical execution towards judgement-based work in complex environments.”

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Matt Sherwen, Managing Director at Sherwen Studios

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“Using AI to augment teams rather than replace them should be critical to any AI strategy. When used correctly, AI can streamline processes, eliminate bottlenecks, and speed up outputs. We’ve moved beyond using AI to maintain the same level of output more quickly. The real opportunity is to expand what can be delivered through more intuitive ways of working, improved services or entirely new business solutions.

“However, too many organisations remain focused on using AI as a cost-reduction mechanism rather than creating additional value. That’s where opportunities are being lost. AI is often positioned as a customer-facing tool, but its greatest impact lies in the internal functions. When teams work more cohesively, they can improve collaboration and make better use of shared data across departments.

“AI outputs are only valuable if they are accurate, and a single error can quickly undermine confidence or cause significant damage. Human oversight remains critical at every AI touchpoint because while AI can rapidly process data, it cannot replicate the context, nuance and experience people bring. It can’t react to changing market conditions, because it only works within the confines of the data it’s trained on.

“The businesses that succeed will recognise that AI must be combined with human experience to deliver long-term benefits.”

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For any questions, comments or features,��.

The post AI Shouldn’t Replace Your Team, It Should Supercharge It: The Case For Augmentation Over Automation appeared first on 91̽��.

, a Boston-based real estate development professional, is one of the clearest examples of this emerging practitioner type. Trained at the intersection of architecture, urban planning, finance, and public policy – and recently completing graduate-level real estate development studies at �� – Kalra represents a generation of developers who have moved beyond the traditional division of labor between those who design cities and those who finance them.

“Most cities don’t fail because they lack projects,” Kalra says. “They fail because the projects are disconnected from each other – economically, socially, and operationally.”

It is a deceptively simple observation. But in an industry that has long rewarded asset-level thinking, it marks a meaningful departure.

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Building at Scale

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The shift Kalra embodies didn’t emerge from theory alone – it was shaped by years of practice in environments where the line between design and capital strategy had already started to dissolve.

During her tenure at Boston-based Elkus Manfredi Architects between 2021 and 2024, Kalra worked across large-scale urban projects spanning research, healthcare, and residential mixed-use development. What distinguished the work was its scope: rather than operating within the conventional boundaries of architecture – form, program, and aesthetics – she engaged directly with development feasibility, density modeling, and long-range investment forecasting. These were disciplines that, for most of architecture’s professional history, belonged to a separate class of practitioners entirely.

That convergence is now reshaping how institutional capital approaches real estate. Post-pandemic, major investors have pivoted toward district-scale environments – university-anchored corridors, life sciences clusters, innovation-oriented mixed-use nodes – where sustained economic activity depends on how uses interact rather than how individual buildings perform. The single-asset model is increasingly giving way to a portfolio-of-systems model, and developers who can think at that scale are in short supply.

Kalra subsequently expanded her practice into policy work, advising on historic preservation and development reform in Massachusetts alongside legislative stakeholders. The experience exposed a dimension of development economics that pro formas rarely capture: how much regulatory architecture – approval timelines, zoning structures, entitlement risk – determines whether a project lives or dies before a single shovel breaks ground.

“Real estate is usually discussed as a physical industry,” she said. “But in practice, it’s a systems industry. Capital flows, entitlement structures, transportation access, labor concentration, zoning policy – those variables determine whether cities compound economically over time.”
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The Infrastructure Gap as Investment Thesis

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If the American market revealed the system’s problem in development, Kalra’s turn toward emerging markets – particularly India – brought it into sharper relief. In an essay published in , Kalra examined one of the most consequential infrastructure challenges in the global economy: India’s estimated shortfall of INR 38.9 lakh crore against a national infrastructure plan of INR 185 lakh crore through 2040. Her argument was not that the country lacked capital. It was that the country had been building the wrong thing, in the wrong way. “The gap has rarely been about the absence of money,” she wrote. “It has been about approval cycles that stretch beyond any reasonable planning horizon and projects designed in isolation from the systems they were supposed to connect with.”

The distinction between assets and systems – a theme central to her practice – becomes measurable at this scale. A standalone transit station moves people. A transit-oriented corridor transforms land values, attracts firms, concentrates talent, and generates fiscal returns across an entire region. “The difference in outcomes between assets and systems is not incremental,” she writes. “It tends to be an order of magnitude.” That thesis is not academic. It directly informs her current advisory role at the Cambridge Innovation Centre, where she is working on expanding CIC’s campus model into India – applying the innovation district logic she has studied and practiced to one of the world’s fastest-growing urban economies. The global real estate market, , makes the stakes of getting this right – or wrong – difficult to overstate.

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Rewriting the Terms of Development

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Not all observers are persuaded that the hybrid developer-as-policy-architect model holds up under real market conditions. “Architecture training gives you a powerful visual vocabulary,” said one senior developer, who declined to be named. “But real estate development is fundamentally about financial discipline. The learning curve does not care about your credentials.”

The critique is grounded in history. The development industry has seen more than a few visionary thinkers undone by the unforgiving arithmetic of debt service, construction cost overruns, and market timing. Bringing a systems lens to real estate only adds value if it survives contact with a pro forma.

Kalra’s recent work with The RMR Group – one of the largest publicly traded real estate companies in the United States – focused on revenue optimisation and capital allocation strategy across large-scale real estate assets. In an industry where credibility is earned through financial execution rather than design vision alone, that experience reflects an increasing ability to operate across both development and investment decision-making.

What Kalra ultimately represents is less a personal story than a structural argument about what the development industry needs as it enters a more complex era – one defined by constrained public financing, aging infrastructure, competing fiercely for talent, capital, and long-term economic relevance. “A lot of what has been built has underperformed,” she wrote of India’s infrastructure record. “And a lot of what still needs to be built has returns that dwarf what the construction cost alone would suggest.”

In a market moving toward $33 trillion, the professionals who can hold both of those truths simultaneously – who can see the system and read the spreadsheet – may be the industry’s most valuable and scarcest resource.

The post Shagun Kalra Is Among The Few Real Estate Professionals Reframing Development As Systems Strategy appeared first on 91̽��.

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is proud to announce our third AITech campaign, celebrating the most exciting AI companies across the world.

Whether your business has been innovating in the AI space for 20 years or just two months, this is an opportunity to have your story heard.

Enter for free for a chance to be featured as one of our top 45 AI companies. Each company featured will get an individual write-up, so it’s great publicity!

Founded in 2016, 91̽�� is the UK’s best-known and fastest-growing startup and tech news site. This��is where decision-makers, investors and startups of all sizes and nature come to find out the latest developments and trends within the industry.

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Entries Open: 6th May

Entry Cost:��Free

Entry Deadline: 21st May, 5pm GMT

Winners To Be Announced:��10am GMT 1 June 2026

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Why Enter?

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• Featured in front of an audience of 200,000+ visitors per month
• Top 45 placements get a full page write-up (
• Recognised by VCs, investors, journalists and industry leaders
• Free to enter

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Our Criteria

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• All companies must have an AI angle
• Revenue is not a deciding factor
• Both new businesses and established businesses welcome

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Meet The Judges

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Important! Advice From The Judges

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Use the first line to describe your business, what it does and what you are about in two sentences…what makes you tick?

With our judges reading through hundreds of applications, we are looking for a clear description of your business, its concept, its success and plans for growth.

Try to avoid waffle and discuss your business clearly and concisely.

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Entries Are Now Closed

The post Enter 91̽��’s AITech45 2026! appeared first on 91̽��.

The round was led by Heartcore Capital and Balderton Capital, with participation from Evantic, Yellow VC and Entrepreneurs First, alongside a group of angel investors that includes members of the SpaceMaker founding team and operators from companies such as Meta, Hugging Face and Supabase.

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Rethinking a Slow-Moving Industry

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Despite being one of the largest global asset classes, real estate development has remained relatively untouched by modern software innovation. Early-stage processes such as feasibility studies, site analysis and architectural design are still heavily manual, fragmented and time-intensive.

Davis is positioning itself as part of a broader shift away from traditional SaaS tools towards AI-native services that deliver outcomes directly. Rather than offering software to assist architects and developers, the company generates feasibility studies and architectural designs itself, and��then validates them with human experts before delivery.

The goal is simple: reduce the time it takes to move from site analysis to a workable concept from months to just a few days.

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From Tools to Outcomes

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Founded by Mehdi Rais and Amine Chraibi, Davis combines generative AI with architectural expertise to streamline early-stage development. The platform ingests regulatory, technical and market data, turning these inputs into constraints that guide design generation.

Outputs include feasibility studies, volumetric models, floor plans and space planning – all reviewed by human architects before being handed off to developers and investors.

This hybrid model reflects a growing trend across enterprise AI, where companies are moving beyond productivity tools and towards fully integrated, outcome-driven services.

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Davis Introduces Gaudi-1

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Alongside the funding, Davis has also launched Gaudi-1, its first proprietary model designed specifically for architectural generation under real-world constraints.

Unlike traditional generative models that operate in pixel-based environments, Gaudi-1 works in a structured, discrete space. It generates buildings as compositions of architectural elements such as rooms, walls and layouts, allowing for greater control and more reliable outputs.

This approach is designed to better reflect the realities of construction, where regulatory requirements, financial viability and spatial constraints all play a role in shaping design decisions.

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A Growing AI Category

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Davis is part of a broader movement applying AI to physical-world industries, often referred to as “Physical AI.” Similar to how AI is reshaping software development and customer service, startups are now targeting sectors like construction, manufacturing and logistics.

What makes real estate particularly attractive is the combination of high-value decisions and slow-moving processes. Even small efficiency gains can have significant financial impact, especially in early-stage development where time directly affects returns.

Investors are taking notice. According to Heartcore Capital partner Max Niederhofer, Davis stands out for combining three key elements: a proprietary generative model, human validation and a clear impact on timelines in a time-sensitive industry.

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Early Traction and Expansion Plans

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The company is already working with developers across multiple geographies and asset classes, with plans to support hundreds of projects over the next year.

Its technology is designed to adapt to local regulations, allowing it to scale across different markets without requiring entirely new systems for each region.

This flexibility could prove critical as AI adoption in real estate accelerates globally, particularly in markets facing housing shortages or increased development pressure.

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The Bigger Shift in PropTech

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Davis’ approach also signals a broader shift in proptech. For years, innovation in the sector has focused on digitisation – moving processes online or improving collaboration tools. Now, the focus is shifting towards automation and intelligence.

By delivering completed outputs rather than tools, companies like Davis are effectively repositioning themselves within the value chain, sitting closer to decision-making rather than just enabling it.

This raises interesting questions about the future role of architects, planners and developers. While human expertise remains central (particularly in validation and oversight) the balance between manual work and automated generation is clearly evolving.

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The Future for Davis and Gaudi-1

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With fresh funding in place, Davis plans to expand its research capabilities, grow its team and continue developing its AI models.

For co-founder and CEO Mehdi Rais, the ambition goes beyond speeding up workflows. “Real estate is one of the world’s largest asset classes, yet some of its most important workflows still move at a pace that no longer makes sense,” he said. “We started Davis to set a new time standard for real estate development.”

If the company succeeds, it won’t just make development faster – it could fundamentally change how cities are designed and built.

The post Davis Raises $5.5M To Bring AI Speed To Real Estate Development appeared first on 91̽��.