INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Urban-X, the urban-tech startup accelerator backed by MINI andearly-stage urban-tech fund Urban.Us, hosted a demo day today for its fourth
cohort of companies at its Brooklyn HQ
The seven presenting companies offered solutions to issues plaguing modern cities, including toll-road pricing, energy and construction
management, and even the inefficiencies of modern cycling helmets.In a day that offered an impressive display of entrepreneurial talent,
here are a few of the companies that really stood out to us:RentlogicIn hopes of improving landlord transparency, Rentlogic uses years of
city government data to create objective algorithmic letter ratings for apartment buildings
As CEO Yale Fox pointed out, despite city-dwellers spending half our paychecks on rent, urban housing hasn&t seen the same rating systems
that we use to guide decisions on where we eat, what car we buy, or what shows we binge
Rentlogic allows apartment hunters to screen buildings before signing a lease and avoid committing to unhealthy conditions or an absentee
landlord.Rentlogic partners with landlords looking to obtain a stamp of quality for potential renters, offering an added inspection feature
that allows them to hang a letter rating outside their building
The company roster of customers already includes Blackstone and Phipps Houses, the largest for-profit and non-profit landlords in the world,
What stands out with Rentlogic is its ability to scale.Though currently only in New York City, the same data used in New York presumably
exists across all major US markets and Rentlogic has minimized the cost of entering new cities by building out the back-end infrastructure
required to ingest and analyze the data
From a demand perspective, as renters defer to Rentlogic for quality assurance and more competitors hang &A& ratings outside their
buildings, landlords will face more pressure to maintain the same offering.The idea hit home for a born-and-bred New Yorker with my own set
of landlord horror stories, and the first thing I did when I leftwas lookup my building on Rentlogic.CampsyteMost companies wish they had
mega-campuses or &motherships& where they could offer employees access to sprawling outdoor working areas.For companies based in urban
areas, offering outdoor space can be tough, with many parks often privatized, far from city centers, or void of the amenities needed to be
productive.Campsyte transforms underutilized urban outdoor spaces into productive and fun spaces that customers can book for co-working
purposes, corporate off-sites, or events.Similar toWeWork approach with buildings, Campsyte takes a parking lot, and adds value by filling
it with greenery, furniture, electricity, WiFi, and other services.With its services driving nearly 10x the annual revenue per square foot
seen by traditional parking lots, the value proposition for lot owners is convincing
Given the competition companies are facing when it comes to attracting and retaining talent, providing the same amenities as competitors
based outside city centers seems invaluable, with Campsyte boasting an extremely impressive roster of partner companies, including LinkedIn,
PayPal, Salesforce, and Airbnb.ODN (Open Data Nation)As anyone who has driven in a city knows, car crashes or accidents can often be caused
by the built environment around you.Yet insurers, who focus on personal characteristics like credit scores when underwriting a policy, lack
the measurement tools to assess the risk of someone external environment
Founded by an MIT-trained city planner, ODN builds risk models using machine learning and public data records to help insurers evaluate
risk and mitigate accidents
The resulting analytics eases the selection process for insurers, allowing them to drive more sales with less cost and risk.ODN is already
partnered up with some of the world largest insurers including Zurich, Travelers, and Hanover Insurance
The potential use cases for ODN technology go far beyond the massive existing insurance market, with the eventual rollout of autonomous cars
forcing insurers to ask how they construct policies when human behavior plays no role in accidents.ODN is working with carriers to help
answer this question while helping create a more efficient and fair underwriting process today.Other members of Urban-X Cohort 4
included:Avvir: &Avvir automates quality assurance for the construction industry, providing real-time insights into the progress and
potential defects on a project.&ClearRoad: &ClearRoad helps government agencies automate toll road pricing for any section of road without
the need for traditional proprietary hardware infrastructure.&Park Diamond: &Park Diamond makes biking better by reinventing the bike
helmet, using next-generation materials to build a safer, more portable helmet that can roll up into the shape of a water bottle for easier
carrying, while looking like a regular hat, cap, or beanie.&Sapient Industries: &Sapient Industries has developed an autonomous energy
management system that senses and learns human behavior in order to eliminate wasted energy in buildings.&
