Quikr Acquires India Property To Strengthen Real Estate Biz

SUMMARY

The acquisition will help Quikr grow its transactions and add to its classifieds base

Quikr's real-estate business grew three fold last year

The company is taking an acquisition-led path to growth

Bengaluru-based online classifieds marketplace Quikr has acquired Chennai-based real estate platform, India Property Online Pvt Ltd, for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition of India Property’s full stack model will help the company grow its transactions and add to its classifieds base, Quikr founder and CEO Pranay Chulet said.

Founded in 2012, India Property offers in-depth information on property buying, selling and renting. The platform lists more than 600K properties and 8,000 verified builder projects across 15 cities in India. It enables property search, diligence, financing, and transactions.

The company is backed by investors such as Bertelsmann India Investments and Mayfield. India Property also provides an analytics platform which uses street-level transaction data for residential properties covering about 5 Mn properties in South India.

Quikr runs its own real estate vertical as well, which it claimed has contributed 35% of its overall revenue last year. In August, the company said that real estate vertical tripled its revenue in the last 12 months and is on track to again grow more than 100% in the next 12 months.

The company said its real estate business gained profitability in March. It works on two models: a co-living business to offer shared rentals to millennials and a brokerage business for home buying. In its co-living vertical, Quikr claims to have over 70K tenants at the end of November.

Currently valued at $1.6 Bn (INR 11,295 Cr), Quikr has till date raised total equity funding of $350 Mn (INR 2,483.7 Cr) from investors like Tiger Global, Kinnevik, Warburg Pincus, Matrix Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, eBay, and Nokia Growth Partners.

Quikr, which was founded in 2008, has followed an acquisition strategy to strengthen its various businesses and has acquired 14 startups to date including HDFC Developers, Babajob, Hiree, Zimmber, and ZapLuk.

As the company aims to breakeven in the upcoming financial year, its increasing strength with acquisitions puts it in direct competition with many other players such as OLX and MagicBricks. Real estate sector in India is expected to reach a market size of $1 Tn by 2030 from $120 Bn in 2017 and contribute 13% of the country’s GDP by 2025.