Quikr to acquire Zefo

Online classifieds marketplace, Quikr is reportedly in talks to acquire Gurugram based used goods marketplace Zefo, for approximately $28.5 Million in an all-stock deal. Following the acquisition, Sequoia-backed Zefo will reportedly continue to operate as a separate entity.

Zefo was founded in 2015 manages its end-to-end operations, including product refurbishment and repairs of its sold products, in order to ensure a higher degree of standardization. In 2017, Zefo had raised $9.2 Mn (INR 60 Cr) in Series B funding. The round was led by prolific investors such as Sequoia India, Helion Venture Partners and Singapore-headquartered VC fund Beenext.

Founded in 2008, Bengaluru-based Quikr has followed an acquisition strategy to strengthen its various businesses and has acquired 14 startups till date including HDFC Developers, Commonfloor, Babajob, Hiree, Zimmber, and ZapLuk.

Quikr, which competes with OLX, Quikr and eBay, already hosts refurbished products advertisements on its platform but it does not offer repairs or delivery of the refurbished goods. The platform simply connects the buyer and seller, who then schedule the product pickup and payment among themselves.

PropTiger buys PropRates

Online real estate advisor PropTiger.com has acquired Mumbai based start-up PropRates, which gathers real estate transaction data. The acquisition will enable PropTiger to offer consumers real-time data about property transaction, both sales and rentals, in Mumbai in order to determine the fair market value of a property.

News Corp backed PropTiger, which also owns real estate portal Makaan.com, has been acquiring start-ups to gain strength in areas such as data research and 3D reality. PropTiger bought a start-up called 3DPhy in August to strengthen 3D visualization. Last year, PropTiger bought Bengaluru based OoBI Media Solutions Pvt. Ltd, which operates a digital interaction design start-up under the Out of Box Interaction Brand.

PropTiger has been offering new products such as 3D realty and real estate data insights to widen its revenue stream from the current dependence on commissions from real estate transactions. While the 3D visualization service is yet to gain widespread acceptance in the Real estate market, other portals such as commonfloor.com and housing.com are also experimenting with the technology.

PropTiger plans to tap its wider user base to offer its real estate data insights. The PropRates service will initially be available in Mumbai and later extended to nine other cities under the next phase of expansion. 

Quikr acquires RealtyCompass

Online classifieds website Quikr India Pvt. Ltd acquired real estate analytics firm Blitzkrieg Technology Pvt. Ltd which operates under the name RealtyCompass for an undisclosed sum. This is the second acquisition by the company in the sector. It acquired Indian Realty Exchange (IRX) an aggregator of real estate agents.

It also made a strategic investment in AN Virtual world Tech Ltd, a hyper-local search engine providing street views. The latest acquisition will help QuikrHomes access technology built by RealtyCompass that helps consumers and investors in their decision making process by providing builder ratings and detailed project analysis. As part of its growth strategy, Quikr has been focusing on automobiles, jobs, services and customer to customer sales.

The size of Real estate sector is expected to reach $853 Billion by 2028 and its contribution to India’s gross domestic product will be 13%. While Quikr competes with Naspers backed OLX in the classified business, its competitors in the real estate sector are Housing.com, PropTiger Realty India Pvt. Ltd, Magicbricks Realty Services Ltd and 99 Acres.

Softbank backed Housing.com which started off as a listing website and now enables users to buy and sell properties online, acquired risk assessment company Realty Business Intelligence for Rs. 10 Crore in cash in June and Indian Real Estate Forum in March. PropTiger also acquired Makaan.com in April. QuikrHomes currently connects customers from more than 1000 cities and towns across India and it helps conclude more than 200,000 transactions a month.

Quikr to acquire CommonFloor

Online classified portal Quikr India Pvt. Ltd is in the final stage of discussions to buy real estate portal CommonFloor.com in a share swap deal. The valuation is expected to be in the range of $120 Million to $200 Million.

CommonFloor owned by maxHeap Technologies, in January raised an undisclosed amount from Google Inc. venture arm Google Capital in a deal that valued the company at around $200 Million. The other investor in CommonFloor is Accel Partners. Tiger Global, which has over the past one year, invested in scores of big and small Indian Startups is currently in the process of pulling back from big ticket investments.

Tiger Global is re-allocating its investments to stronger companies in its portfolio, including Quikr which is in process of realigning its business, creating new business verticals across real estates, automobiles and jobs, among others. Quikr has so far raised $346 Million from investors such as Investment AB Kinnevik Tiger Global, Steadview Capital Management and Matrix Partners India.

CommonFloor has so far raised more than $60 Million from Accel Partners, Tiger Global and Google Capital over multiple rounds. According to some investors, the sector saw a churn after Softbank backed Housing.com owned by Locon Solutions Pvt. Ltd, raised large amount of Capital and invested heavily in marketing and advertising, pushing other companies to follow suit.

Quikr Buys Indian Realty Exchange

Online classifieds portal Quikr India Pvt. Ltd had acquired Indian Realty Exchange (IRX, incorporated as 123 Startup Ventures Pvt. Ltd) a real estate agent aggregator, for an undisclosed amount to strengthen its real estate vertical QuikrHomes.

With its latest round of funding ($60 Million) in September, Quikr strengthened its push in five business segments automobiles, real estate, jobs, services and customer-to-customer sales to explore new sources of revenue. These five categories account for about 90% of the 10 Million listings of platform. This acquisition will allow it to gain access to real estate agents.

QuikrHomes currently has customers in 1000 cities and towns across India and concludes 200,000 transactions per month. IRX helps users connect to the agents for buying and selling property, and updates listings with locations in real time and features agent reviews, rankings, trust networks and a chat platform for agents to exchange inventory and requirements with users and other agents.

Quikr has received funding of around $200 Million since its inception in 2008, and counts Tiger Global Management, Kinnevik, Matrix Partners India, Nokia Growth Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, Omidyar Network, Warburg Pincus, and eBay as its investors. QuikrHomes enters into competition with CommonFloor, Housing.com, PropTiger, NoBroker, and Magic Bricks. 

Square Yards acquires Realizing.in

Gurgaon headquartered Real Estate advisory and brokerage firm Square Yards Consulting Pvt. Ltd., is set to merge with Real Estate research portal Realizing.in. The move is aimed at capturing 15 per cent market share of India’s Real Estate search market in the next few years. As part of the deal, the entire team of Realizing which is owned by IDW Technology Pvt. Ltd., would join square yards.

The Realizing.in portal would be rechristened as Square yards and the group would continue to build research capabilities under the Realizing brand. The ultimate aim is to evolve Realizing into a big data analytics platform for global real estate. Square yards, which operates a portal by the same name has been evolved in real estate transactions worth $350 Million since starting operations.

Square yards offers solutions for property related needs. It caters to residential projects, hotels projects, student accommodation, and mall development. Square yards had raised $6 Million in a pre-series round of funding from a clutch of unnamed investors in May this year. The company claims to have clocked revenue of Rs 38 crore in its first year of operations. Realizing.in offers services such as city heat maps, carpet area and built up area calculations for property transactions. It also helps users with key property related decision based on automated algorithms.

India’s online property search market has evolved radically over the last few years. The leading companies in this space are Softbank backed Housing, News Corp backed PropTiger and Tiger Global, Accel Partners and Google Capital backed CommonFloor besides the legacy players. Times Internet promoted Magic Bricks, Info Edge 99acres.com and Chennai based India Property.