City Builder in Milan

Citi Collaborates with Milano & Partners to Expand City Builder® by Citi, a Free, Data-Driven Platform to attract capital to build a more resilient, sustainable and connected city post Covid-19 in Milan.

• The collaboration stems from Milan’s increased focus on leveraging technology and encouraging Foreign Direct Investment inflow and is part of the Municipality of Milan’s wider initiative to encourage community development, urban growth, job creation and talent acquisition.
• The City Builder platform aggregates key social data such as population, demographics, education, land usage, mobility scores, and more to provide increased transparency into urban investment opportunities.
• Together, Citi and Milano & Partners hope that this new platform will encourage more investors and businesses to explore the diverse opportunities each neighborhood has to offer in terms of growth and redevelopment. 

New York / Milan – Today, Citi and Milano & Partners, the official promotional agency of the City of Milan, announced the launch of City Builder® in Milano, a free, data-driven platform that aggregates key social metrics to help investors make more impactful real estate investments in urban areas. By providing local and foreign investors with an easy to use platform that visualizes neighborhoods in Milan, Milano & Partners hopes to attract more capital that will help build a more resilient, sustainable and connected city post Covid-19.

When it comes to real estate investing around the world, there is no standardized list or centralized location of data sources investors can use to make effective investments. Initially launched in the U.S. in 2019, City Builder® by Citi is one of the first platforms that seamlessly integrates data and leverages data visualization tools to provide a comprehensive view of investment opportunities within cities. The goal of the City Builder platform is to bring more transparency to key metrics, such as population, demographics, education, land usage, and mobility scores, that can help local and foreign investors make more impactful investments.

Citi is excited to collaborate with Milano & Partners to expand the City Builder platform to Milan, as the city rebuilds its economy after the pandemic. By making key social data more accessible to investors, Milano & Partners hopes to encourage foreign investors, entrepreneurs, developers, and nonprofits to find investment opportunities in the city, discover new real estate projects, renovate old buildings, and revitalize neglected areas.

Access to a new, technology-driven platform like City Builder® is part of the Municipality of Milan’s wider initiative to encourage community development, urban growth, job creation and talent acquisition in each of the city’s neighborhoods.

Giuseppe Sala, Mayor of the Milan Municipality said: "Milan, like all major cities, has paid a high price during the pandemic. The strong international vocation of the city, and the presence of 20,000 international students and 4,700 foreign companies are the drivers to restart Milan's economy. The City Builder® platform offers an innovative tool to bring investments to our territory, and in particular our neighborhoods, around which we are developing the idea of a more sustainable city. We are happy that Citi has chosen Milan to internationally expand the City Builder platform".  

Valla Vakili, Managing Director and Head of Citi Ventures Studio, the team that built City Builder® in Milano adds: “We launched City Builder with the goal of increasing transparency and access to information in order to enable investors to make impactful investment decisions in communities. This mission is important now more than ever when cities are trying to rebuild and recover after the pandemic. We are thrilled to expand City Builder to Milano, a vibrant city with immense growth potential.”

The City Builder platform’s functionality allows users to:

• Analyze neighborhoods by comparing the unique characteristics of the areas of the city, including population, demographics, education, land usage, mobility scores, and insights on the future developments and the City’s Territorial Plan
• Explore active real estate projects and start conversations with local stakeholders overseeing specific investment projects
• Make more impactful investment decisions by accessing more comprehensive data

Data is key to sound investment decisions;  the data displayed on the City Builder platform is collected, analyzed, cross-referenced and refreshed periodically. For City Builder® in Milano, the data comes from a wide variety of public sources, as well as paid-for, proprietary, and private sources in partnership with Milano & Partners. Continuous enhancements and additions to existing and new open data sources will be implemented in the upcoming months.

The City Builder platform was built, designed and launched by the Citi Ventures Studio team, which focuses on developing products and services that drive economic vitality for people and communities. You can learn more about the Citi Ventures Studio team here: https://www.citi.com/ventures/studio.html