Online classifieds major Quikr celebrates New Year with the much speculated acquisition, by acquiring online realty portal CommonFloor in a stock-and-cash deal for $200 Mn.
However, Commonfloor will continue to operate as a stand-alone entity.
The two confirmed the news on twitter:
@Quikr just entered the building. How about you?
— CommonFloor.com (@commonfloor) January 7, 2016
Getting there @Quikr!
— CommonFloor.com (@commonfloor) January 7, 2016
@Quikr together #QuikrCommonFloor creating a new future
— CommonFloor.com (@commonfloor) January 7, 2016
The move is another important step in Quikr’s strategy to create industry-leading verticals in categories in which it has always operated. This is Quikr’s fourth and the biggest strategic move in the real estate category since the launch of QuikrHomes about four months ago.
Pranay Chulet, Founder & CEO, Quikr, said:
We see great synergies between us and CommonFloor. We both believe in creating businesses that are strong on growth as well as monetization and have a tremendous cultural fit. With a highly successful recent campaign, launch of industry defining Street Vision, and now today’s announcement, QuikrHomes is off to a great start in 2016. We expect this transaction to not only accelerate the growth of QuikrHomes, but also our other verticals.
Sumit Jain, Co-founder and CEO, CommonFloor.com, said,
This merger creates a strong industry leader and gives us a very strong platform to grow the business further. Our obvious synergies will benefit consumers, property developers, as well as our real estate partners, who are all key to the progression of the online real estate ecosystem. We are excited about working together with the Quikr team and bringing more unique and compelling solutions to our consumers.
The news for the acquisition has been the talk of the town since October 2015 speculating the size of the deal from $50 Mn to $200 Mn. It was reported in November 2015, that classifieds major had acquired the reality portal for $200 Mn, however, both the companies denied the fact stating that it was rumors and both of them are looking at new avenues.
The merger will give CommonFloor an access to Quikr’s 30 Mn consumers and harness the potential of the cross category nature of the platform, while QuikrHomes will benefit from CommonFloor’s structured data and domain expertise.
Started in 2007 by Sumit Jain, Lalit Mangal and Vikas Malpani, Commonfloor is an online real estate platform backed by big venture capital funds like Tiger Global, Accel Partners and Google Capital. The company raised multiple rounds of funding, which saw participation from from Google Capital in 2015 along with Tiger Global in 2014, who invested $10 Mn and $30 Mn in seperate rounds.
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