HDFC Capital Commits Investment In 15 Proptech Startups

HDFC Capital’s tech platform (Housing and Affordable Real Estate and Technology) H@ART has committed investments in 15 proptech startups. However, the size of the committed investment has not been disclosed so far. 

H@ART aims to create efficiencies and reduce costs in the overall development cycle of real estate projects. 

“We at HDFC firmly believe that technology will play a significant role in the development of a sustainable, efficient real estate ecosystem and in meeting India’s ‘Housing for All’ goal. H@ART is a unique initiative for real time interaction between demand (industry), logistics startups and financiers to accelerate adoption of technology in the built world,” said Deepak Parekh, chairman of HDFC Ltd.

H@ART is a not-for-profit tech platform set up by HDFC Capital. Its stakeholders are global and domestic investors, developers, real estate funds, VC and general private equity funds, startups, academia and industry associations. 

So far, H@ART has infused money in  Loyalie, HomeExchange and Monsoon CreditTech. It also launched HDFC Real Estate Tech Innovators 2022, in association with Startup India wherein 10 startups were shortlisted.  

The development has come a few days after HDFC Capital led the funding round of SaaS startup Monsoon CreditTech.

Prior to that, HDFC Group’s banking arm HDFC Bank offloaded about 3.21% share in fintech SaaS startup Lentra. Post this transaction, the startup was pegged at more than INR 54 Cr.

Further, in August, HDFC Bank inked an agreement to infuse between INR 49.9 Cr to INR 69.9 Cr in insurtech startup Go Digit Life Insurance. 

According to Inc42’s latest ‘Indian Startup Funding Report Q3 2022’,Indian startups have raised a cumulative funding of $134 Bn to date. Meanwhile, between January and September 2022, startups bagged $22 Bn funding in aggregate, which is 19% lower than $27 Bn being raised in the corresponding quarters in 2021. 

Ongoing funding winter, market inflation along with global economic slowdown are some of the prime reasons for reduced startup fundings in the Indian business ecosystem.