Olivia Ramos earned master’s degrees in architecture from Columbia University and in real estate development at the University of Miami. But it wasn’t until she was working as a construction project manager in Miami that she saw a need for software that would merge demographic, zoning, financial, and legal data all in one place. “There was a glitch in the system,” says Ramos. She founded Deepblocks at Singularity University in Mountain View, California, in 2016 and launched her program this past May. Deepblocks’ A.I. software accesses and integrates construction costs, income, and other market data that is publicly available but often difficult to track down, saving developers, investment brokers, and architects huge amounts of time. Even a developer who knows a market well might need six hours to come up with a feasibility analysis for a given parcel of land. “But with our software, they can do the same amount of work in 20 minutes,” says Ramos. Real estate pros in 1,100 U.S. cities are already using the software, which the company is also testing in the United Kingdom, Panama, and Nigeria. Ideally, the cost savings will flow through to property renters and buyers too. If it does, says Ramos, “perhaps we can lower the cost of living.” –Hannah Wallace
