1. You have a hugely dynamic profile and background. Could you briefly describe who you are and what has brought you to where you are today?

I’m Lucas Carné and I was born in Barcelona half a century ago. Happily married with a former workmate and with two children (5 and 6 years old).

I am a dreamer. Converting dreams into creations is a superior live experience.

I was born in an entrepreneur family and I was early infected with the virus of entrepreneurship, which is the apex of creation for a business professional.

Perseverance and resilience do the rest, and I have learned quite a lot participating in long endurance cycling races, another big passion

2. Why did you start 011h and what is the company’s mission?

011h is our second start-up after Privalia, a pioneering e-commerce company that we created in 2006 and sold to our main competitor in 2016 for half a billion USD.

After leaving Privalia in 2019 and taking a short break, we started to develop a curiosity for building construction, as it is probably the only big industry yet to be transformed by technology-driven innovation.

Suddenly, we discovered a space that is one of the major contributors to global heating and can not respond anymore to the current needs, that’s how 011h came to life.

We couldn’t imagine a more meaningful, impactful and exciting challenge to devote our energy and leverage our experience

3. Lucas Carné, what are your short-term and long-term plans for your company 011h?

Short term plans are to prove the concept and get market validation.

We are using a digital-like agile approach: develop an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) of our building platform as fast as possible, get it tested in a real development with a real customer, learn and iterate.

Construction cost and scalability are the biggest challenges.

Long term plans are to penetrate aggressively the residential local segment, gain market share, enter into new segments and geographies, and become one of the most valuable construction companies in Europe.

We dream to start a high rise of carbon-neutral building per day.

4. What are the main challenges facing the construction Market and what role does ConTech play in addressing these challenges?

Construction Productivity is tanking -23% since 1990 with impact in final prices, contractors are notoriously missing deadlines and budgets, buildings have basic lacks of quality, and the industry is responsible, directly and indirectly, for more than 30% of global carbon emissions.

Root causes are the increasing scarcity of qualified labour in a yet manual production process, the highly fragmented and misaligned value chain, the project by project-based approach and, as a consequence of all the previous, the underinvestment in technology and innovation.

5. How essential is tech and innovation in helping the Real Estate Industry reach its decarbonisation goals?

Our vision is that sustainability is not sustainable unless it is pretty and cheap.

Regarding construction, decarbonization depends on using alternative structural materials like certified timber, passive design principles, and renewable primary energy facilities. That comes at a cost.

And the only way to offset extra costs and make it scalable is by simplifying and standardizing end-to-end processes and automating them as much as possible while preserving flexibility and creativity.

Enabling this requires the enforcement of software, data and Al along and across the entire value chain.

‍