How do you make Europe the best place in the world to provide affordable housing and to grow such a business?
This was discussed in Rakvere, Estonia on 17-18/11/2025 at a decentralised event of the Knowledge Exchange Platform (KEP), organised by Andres Jaadla, CoR Member.
The EU Startup and Scaleup Strategy launched in May 2025, titled ‘Choose Europe to Start and Scale’, looks to redefine Europe’s place in the global innovation arena by eliminating longstanding barriers that have kept too many start-ups from scaling successfully within the EU.
That’s precisely what the European Commission has tried to answer with their new strategy for fostering a thriving start-up landscape across the continent.
People across Europe are struggling to find an affordable place to live, work, raise their families, and go about their daily lives. A safe and stable home is a basic need, yet in many countries, there is a growing housing crisis with many different faces. Housing affordability has become a widespread and urgent issue across Europe.
The EU Startup and Scaleup Strategy aims to make Europe a global tech leader by fostering innovation, offering better financing, market access, infrastructure and talent attraction, hence addressing current gaps where EU start-ups often scale outside Europe.
This complements housing efforts, like the European Affordable Housing Plan, which focuses on improving energy efficiency and the supply of affordable homes through investment and partnerships, recognising housing as a foundational element for workers, including those in the growing start-up ecosystem. Both strategies emphasise unified EU-level action, simplified regulations, and leveraging public–private partnerships to boost competitiveness and quality of life.
Rising housing costs are changing the equation for ecosystem and finance models. One of the solutions is through Property Technology associations, aiming to solve affordability via construction innovation (3D printing, prefab), smarter management, and new ownership models, plus specific “hacker houses” for co-living, while start-ups themselves face high housing costs, driving demand for new solutions in both building and access.
Key areas include modular construction, energy efficiency, and marketplace platforms, tackling issues from high costs to regulatory hurdles.
The Rakvere KEP event, organised by CoR member Andres Jaadla (ET/Renew Europe), examined how start-ups and scale-ups in the housing sectors can deliver competitive, climate-neutral, and circular solutions.
Participants explored how Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian and wider European experiences can be scaled across regions through knowledge exchange and collaboration to share new R&I solutions and best practices.
The focus covered:
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Digitalisation of housing and construction processes.
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Local and regional innovation ecosystems as enablers of start-up success.
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New business models and investment frameworks supporting housing transformation.
Practical information for city residents, apartment associations, and local governments on: inspiring people and shaping the future of Europe, promoting European unity, R&I solutions, and introducing the preparation of the European Affordable Housing Plan.
Context and Objectives
The Rakvere KEP event functioned as a GDGL pilot event, experimenting with how local knowledge exchange and innovation practices can strengthen the CoR’s Europe-wide process of developing and implementing Local Green Deals. It demonstrated how the GDGL framework can connect local housing innovations to broader European policy goals — particularly in energy efficiency, circular construction, and carbon-neutral urban development.
You can find here pictures taken at the event and the agenda.
More information: Andres Jaadla, CoR member (+3725203987)
