My Life In Numbers

Managing Partner, The Proptech Connection

After three decades in Edinburgh, Stephen Macdonald CA was ready for a change. Now in Sydney and an Australian citizen, he is co-founder of an advisory firm guiding VCs through the fast-growing proptech maze

30

I’m from Edinburgh. I went to school and university there, and my first couple of jobs were there too, so that was my home until I was 30. It’s a city, but it’s got that town feel – very walkable, but with distinct parts to it. So it was a great place to grow up and start my career.

4 I was the youngest of four boys. It was quite a sporty upbringing, as you might imagine – a lot of football when I was young, then latterly rugby because I went to a rugby school. So one way or another, there were a lot of ball games. It was a very active and noisy childhood.

1999

My dad had his own business as an independent financial adviser and I was very numerate, so you could perhaps predict my future path, although it’s not like I was plotting a career in accountancy as a 12-year-old. One of my strongest subjects was economics, which is about understanding how business works in relationship with people. When it was time for university, I opted to do economics and law as a good background for going into business.

23

After university, I thought about what a good next step would be. The CA is a very well-respected qualification, and I trained with PwC. There were 23 people in my cohort. It was intense, but you’re working with some very, very smart people and learning at a really fast rate. There’s an expectation of perfection in that training – and that’s something I have tried to instil in our firm.

£2m–30m

After qualifying, I joined Sigma to work with its cleantech venture capital fund. Seeing people come up with an amazing idea and put their money where their mouth is really appealed to me. No matter if you’ve raised £2m or £30m, you’re figuring things out as you go – how to enter a new market, what to build next, etc. That’s the nature of being a disruptive start-up and that was what attracted me.

2 These days, when people hear the word cleantech, everyone thinks of ESG. Back then it was more about energy independence. We had two investments in marine power. One of our fund’s largest investors was the Portuguese energy authority. Portugal was last in line for the gas being piped from eastern Europe, so as a fallback it was investing heavily in renewable energy. As Portugal and Scotland both have big coastlines we made major investments in two wave energy techs which made large wave devices. The engineering and capability needed to get companies like these off the ground is incredible.

5

I’d been in Edinburgh a long time and wanted a change. So I moved to Australia on a working holiday visa, which gives you a year to get sponsored or you have to go home. Thanks in part to my CA qualification, I was working within five weeks. Now I’ve been here 12 years and I’m a citizen.

50

Sydney has a huge international feel. Just walking down the street there’s a massive British flavour around the place, and in business you meet a huge number of CAs here. And of course there’s always a lot of British people coming to visit. Next year the British Lions rugby team are visiting and I’m on an email group of about 50 people who are already planning for that.

1 My favourite thing about living in Sydney – other than the weather, obviously – is the water. We live in the city, but we’re right beside the water, which makes a huge difference to the atmosphere of everyday life. The mixture of weather, environment, people and food is second to none. It also means great access to the Asia-Pacific region, which I’ve loved exploring.

18,000

I’ve worked in real estate, I’ve worked in tech. They both speak very different languages and use specialised metrics. The Proptech Connection was founded in 2019 to bring the two together and help those in real estate find the best tech solution out of 18,000 different proptechs. We also act as an adviser that sits between the start-ups and the VCs, helping the former raise funds and the latter find companies to invest in.

2

Two of us founded this company five years ago. Proptech used to mean smart sensors that controlled office temperature, or maybe a better way to do spreadsheets on a construction site. Now it’s anything that impacts the spaces in which you live, consume or work. It incorporates everything from 3D printing homes and trying on clothes with VR to using electric vehicles to support the grid. The growth potential is enormous.

25 We now have 15 staff, and another 10 full-time offshore resource, which includes a data team in Thailand. As well as Sydney, we have offices in Chicago and Amsterdam and we’ve just opened in Saudi Arabia.

7

I spent seven weeks in Saudi Arabia in December and January. What they and other Gulf states are doing with technology and buildings is unbelievable. The kingdom is spending around $900bn (£700bn) on construction over the next 10 years and tech is at the forefront. It’s a real turning point, because you’re going to see people with the financial capability and desire fully embed tech into how we live, work and consume. I envisage our company growing rapidly in that region.