Google Backs NoBroker With $5 Mn Capital Infusion

Proptech unicorn NoBroker has raised INR 40 Cr ($5 Mn) in an extended Series E funding round from Google, making the tech major join the list of its existing Series E investors that includes General Atlantic, Tiger Global and Moore Strategic Ventures.

The capital came from the pool of $10 Bn ‘Google for India Digitization Fund’, which was announced by Sundar Pichai in 2020.

As part of the deal, Google and NoBroker will collaborate to enhance user experience and scale product integration with the society management platform NoBrokerHood. Besides, the capital will also be deployed to strengthen its presence in existing areas and expand its footprint to newer regions.

The startup also said that the funding will enable it to ramp up its tech stack and streamline the entire real estate lifecycle of a user via technology. As part of the deal, NoBroker will also partner with Google to build solutions that ‘elevate living experiences’ for residential complex occupants.

“We are delighted to partner with Google in our endeavour to build products and solutions that will simplify the home search and living experience for our users,” NoBroker’s cofounder and CEO Amit Agarwal said.

Commenting on the development, NoBroker’s cofounder and chief technology and product officer Akhil Gupta said, “We are excited to collaborate with Google. One of the key areas where we’ll leverage this partnership will be to build unique solutions that help simplify the lives of the residents of NoBrokerHood societies. Our objective is to aggressively grow and reach 1 lakh societies in the next few years.”

Founded in 2014 by Saurabh Garg, Akhil Gupta and Amit Agarwal, NoBroker is a proptech platform that allows users to buy, rent and list properties without any brokerage fees. It also offers tertiary real estate offerings, including packers and movers, rental agreement services and painting and cleaning for houses. 

It also operates a residential community management platform NoBrokerHood which offers services such as visitor management, financial management, home services, and community management, among others.

The Bengaluru-based startup turned unicorn in November 2021, after raising $210 Mn in a Series E round led by General Atlantic and Tiger Global Management. With the current fundraiser, NoBroker has raised $365 Mn to date. 

The startup claims to have more than 2.5 Cr users and 1 Cr properties registered on its platform across six cities – Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Delhi-NCR. Besides, its NoBrokerHood vertical operates in five additional cities – Kolkata, Coimbatore, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, and Lucknow.

With more than 2 Lakh new monthly listings, NoBroker is one of the biggest players in the Indian proptech space and competes directly with players such as Housing, Makaan, 99Acres, and MagicBricks, among others. 

The past one year has seen the emergence of a slew of new proptech players that have raised hefty amounts. While Blox raised $12 Mn from its existing investors and CRED’s founder Kunal Shah in December last year, Benglauru-based Landeed raised $8.3 Mn in a round from multiple investors earlier this year.

Banking major HDFC’s H@ART (Housing and Affordable Real Estate and Technology) has also committed an undisclosed amount of investments in 15 proptech startups. As per a report, the overall Indian real estate market is projected to grow to a market size of $1 Tn by 2030.

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