A company built in an attempt to address Britain’s housing crisis by improving the planning permission process has closed down.
PropTech Tract, which raised £744,000 in a pre-seed funding round in April 2024, has decided to wrap up operations and released ‘A Postmortem of a Startup’ on its site.
The lengthy article depicts a detailed version of the London-based firm’s journey over the past two years and says that “the ultimate failure of the company lies with us [co-founders Henry Dashwood and Jamie Rumbelow].”
The company was founded in May 2023 as it looked to build software to address the UK housing crisis.
“It seemed absurd that bureaucratic obstacles were holding back so much potential value, especially when millions were being spent on documentation that could be automated,” the document read.
“With the rise of LLMs, we believed we could transform this inefficient process.”
The company managed to raise funds from notable venture capital firms including Ada Ventures and Concept Ventures to build a platform.
The platform was built with the purpose of identifying areas of land to be built and help to compile relevant planning permission documentation to speed up the building of houses.
However, its customer base size did not live up to the expectation and anticipation of the co-founders, leading to it ceasing operations and returning capital to investors last month.
The duo have cited many reasons as to why the business has ultimately failed, including their ability to work together.
A quote from ‘A Postmortem of a Startup’ read: “We get along well, but our skill sets aren’t especially complementary.
“There’s significant overlap, and we didn’t hire thoughtfully enough to correct that.”
It also provided details about the pair spending time and money on ‘non-essentials’, including an office, website and branding, a trip to America, contractors and unnecessary employees.
“This is the thing I’m most angry with myself about,” said Rumbelow, who now plans to move to San Francisco.
“It smacks of vanity and stupidity, and I should have held myself to a higher standard.”
Dashwood added: “If I were to start a startup again, I’d take more time and be more intentional in talking to potential customers before needing to raise money.
“Ironically this feels easier having been through the process once. I’m more comfortable reaching out, focusing my questions to avoid wasting time, and moving the conversation towards getting a firm but useful ‘No’.”
Despite the business ultimately collapsing, the pair have been praised online for their openness and honesty – even by their investors.
Reece Chowdhry, founding partner at Concept Ventures, wrote on LinkedIn: “Building a startup is brutal. So often, VCs focus on the upside – pushing PR and celebrating successes (including me).
“But in my experience, the real learning often comes from the tough moments when things don’t go to plan. I’ve always made it a point to dig into these stories because they’re where the real insights lie.
“I’d really encourage any founder to read the post-mortem from Tract. It wasn’t a smooth journey, but it’s filled with valuable lessons on product, go-to-market strategy, and – most importantly – how to handle challenges with integrity.
“Henry Dashwood and Jamie Rumbelow are remarkable people. The humility they’ve shown in sharing their experience is something I wish I saw more of.
“Huge respect to them for their honesty and willingness to reflect publicly. It’s a powerful reminder that the hardest journeys often teach us the most and to also work together with good people on deals re Matt Penneycard in this case!”
Penneycard, co-founding partner at Ada Ventures, added: “This took bravery. The founders’ hope is that by dissecting this anatomy of a startup publicly, it may have some value for others.
“We invested in these fantastic individuals alongside Reece Chowdhry and I share his views that we wish more founders felt comfortable being this open, in service of others. Kudos.”