São Paulo proptech Housi prepares for its IPO

São Paulo based proptech Housi is preparing to file for an IPO.

Launched last year, it’s been reported that the likes of Credit Suisse, Bank of America, UBS, Citigroup, and Banco Safta are organising the initial public offering.

Last December Housi raised $11 million in a Series A funding round last via venture capital firm Redpoint eventures. The plan is to use any funding from the IPO to purchase more properties in Brazil and expand into various Brazilian states.

In a nutshell, Housi manages and leases properties via its site and advertises on Airbnb and Booking.com respectively.

Moreover, the Brazilian proptech has recently acquired its own properties to launch itself as a property management platform for third parties, which has also been a catalyst for needing further external investment.

Housi’s CEO Alexandre Frankel mentioned on Short Term Rentalz site that they offer flexibility to renters, whether that’s in the the short-term or to extend.

“Flexibility is the trend now, with the option of living via subscription and with no bureaucracy. Come and try it out, if you don’t like it you change to another one.”

Furthermore, he mentioned that the property of the future isn’t a countryside home, the micro-apartment next to the subway station, nor the duplexes with a fancy view of the park.

Investing in start-ups in Brazil and other parts of South America is an emerging trend. Another Sāo Paulo based company Loft announced that it was looking for $68 million as part of a property fund so it could purchase more real estate in Rio de Janiero.

Going back to Housi, the proptech firm has had over 50,000 people renting out properties via its platform, and earlier this year, its net revenue for the first half of 2020 was more than double [US$605,000] the figure it generated at the same stage in 2019. (Figures taken from Short Term Rentalz)

For anyone who speaks Portuguese out there, I recommend subscribing to their YouTube channel. You’ll find a lot of webinars and influences share their views and opinions on the industry.

This is one company I will continue to follow and update you with in a future proptech blogpost.

Proptech platform Offr raises £2.7m in funding

From Sunny Brazil to the Irish capital,Dublin. Property platform Offr, which digitalises the buying, selling and leasing process for real estate agents and buyers (Property Funds World)has raised £2.7 million in a seed funding round led by Barclays.

In addition, other investors including Delta Partners, AIB and Enterprise Ireland also featured in the round.

Launched around eleven months ago with the goal of buying, selling, leasing and renting with one simple click, Offr caters fast and slick digital property transactions, on any device, any time, and from anywhere in the world.

What’s particularly interesting about Offr is that it digitalises around 85% of its property transactions. As mentioned in a recent Property Funds World article, until now, transactions have largely been restricted and confined domestically, with no easy, fast, and secure way of buying properties cross-border available.

This is where Offr is changing the game by making international trading of property possible for buyers online, using traditional real estate agents.

Offr’s total funds raised so far comes to around £3.6 million, this will help with international expansion to further develop its transaction infrastructure platform over the next twelve months. These product developments will expand the platform to manage the transactions of all types of properties, from traditional to auction, including property sales, lettings, commercial purchases, etc.

How the pandemic has spurred innovation in proptech

“The pandemic might have turned 2020 on its head, but it’s also shed some light on the needs and must-haves for the corporate real estate market.”

The above quote comes from Proxyclick’s Gregory Blondeau who recently was interviewed by CBR.

I thought this was an interesting read, particularly when he mentions that there was a time when proptechs struggled to get funds, unlike their fintech counterparts.

His point was that it wasn’t necessarily the lack of funding that saw a lack of innovation in the sector, if anything it was to do with the real estate industry was not up to speed on adopting new technologies at the rate they were being built.

Once upon a time, leaders in the property sector were extremely cautious about changing their business practises and models and adopting new technologies.

However, things have changed, As Blondeau mentions in the interview with CBR below.

There’s now a much wider acceptance of tech adoption, which is confirmed in a KPMG study in 2017. Today, it’s even being said that “proptech is the new fintech.”

The pandemic has shed light on the essentials, we need proptech solutions that take into consideration the likes of people flow, health and safety, as well as data privacy.

Some examples of innovation for these uncertain times include social distancing aids, proptech firm Condeco which specialises in workspace management and resource scheduling software. This enables companies that are prepared to welcome employees back to the office can be ensured that their desks and meetings rooms are booked in accordance with appropriate guidelines.

In addition, touchless experiences are needed. Companies like kastus provide antimicrobial surface protection for those instances where a touchless option isn’t available.

Swiss proptechs and fintechs fight to become real estate champions

Properti’s co-founder and CEO Levent Künzi recently wrote a brief piece on Forbes’s site which I thought was worth a mention.

Main proptech innovations such as virtual reality tours, robots, conferencing technology are become the norm as we know it, however, it’s not just property viewings that are stepping into the world of virtualisation.

Real estate finance from insurance to contract signings are changing at a fast pace.

We’re currently seeing in the Swiss proptech space that big insurance companies and banks are competing with proptech firms and more traditional realtors for the role of market leader in this race toward the digitalisation of services around property, as Künzi mentions in his Forbes article.

UBS, one of the country’s largest banks has launched a new online platform called Key4 that allows customers to search, compare and contract mortgages almost completely online.

As described on the UBS website:

Designed to meet the needs of digital-savvy clients, to start with, the platform offers an uncomplicated way of extending existing mortgages. For financing owner-occupied housing, Swiss private clients may choose from a range of offers from selected Swiss third-party investors on the platform. They can take advantage of attractive conditions offered by various institutional investors such as pension funds, investment foundations or banks, including UBS. The easy to use online user journey allows clients to compare different offers and decide on the most suitable financing for their new owner-occupied home.

Key4 is not the only service in Switzerland that is taking mortgages digitally, but so far, as Künzi stresses, is the only platform that allows for comparison of different providers.

One clear message is that technology is pushing the transaction volume of online mortgages up.

For example, German banks have reported that the proportion of mortgages completed online as 45%, in contrast, in both Switzerland and Austria respectively, the boom in online mortgages is only beginning.

To conclude this story, the combination of proptech and fintech is brilliant news for the modern day consumer who is digitally savvy.

In a nutshell, as Künzi puts it, AI can save both customers and providers a lot of time by automatically suggesting appropriate properties, financing models and additional services such as moving or cleaning companies.

Burmese proptech: iMyanmarHouse remains profitable despite COVID-19

I thought I would end today’s proptech story with an emerging market country as that’s a part of the world that interests me a lot.

I recently stumbled upon this article written by iMyanmarHouse’s Nay Min Thu and thought it was fascinating to see how a company from the emerging world is dealing with the current pandemic.

Nay Min Thu explains to e27 that their physical property sales events declined during the pandemic, and their customers — property agents and developers — temporarily paused their subscriptions and halted their marketing budget because of uncertainties in the market.

He told e27:

We immediately went into the danger of having almost no revenue and facing the possibility of letting go of our staff. That’s when our survival instincts kicked in and did everything we could.

He mentions that iMyanmarHouse continues to revolutionise the real estate industry in the Asian country. After all, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, he stresses.

Last month, they have been named as the Top Property Portal in Myanmar and as one of the Top Property Portals of East Asia alongside the likes of PropertyGuru, iProperty, and 99.co by OnlineMarketplaces.

Here are the lessons Nay Min Thu and iMyanmarHouse have learned from the pandemic.

Adapt quickly to change

No matter where in the world, people have been frightened to go out, and as we’ve seen many businesses have had to close.

Nay Min Thu and his team came to realise that the current situation was not going to go away any time soon, and the viable vaccines would be months away, if not years.

They started working from home and brainstormed ideas on finding ways to reduce costs and increase revenue.

To reduce costs, they froze their staff hiring and promotion activities. In addition, to bring in revenue, we decided to move our physical property sales events, online and set up a skunked team, told Nay Min Thu to e27.

His team worked day and night to make it happen quickly. Thu mentioned that it took him and his staff one week to launch their first online sales event — the first-ever Online Property Sales Event in Myanmar — in early May.

The idea became possible as Thu and his team have a very good relationship with property developers in Myanmar.

Moreover, they made use of various technologies from VR to drone video footage of properties.

Furthermore, iMyanmarHouse used their marketing channels to advertise for the online sales event. Thu explains that when the whole Burmese property market was quiet, we were the only ones being extremely active, the market paid full attention to what we had to offer. That was the opportunity they grabbed and executed really well.

Their quick thinking pulled off, they sold over 60 property units during the two-week online event. Thu told the Asian startup site that they extremely proud to say that they have remained profitable Q1 and Q2 of the year despite of the current pandemic.

The lesson for the startups, Thu says is that if the market situation changes, you cannot say, “Oh, it’s out of our control! There is nothing we can do!” and sit back and hope for the best. You have to move quickly together with the market.

For me the quote that resonates from the article is this quote from Thu below, no matter what sector you operate.

You have to adapt to the changing winds of the business world. Otherwise, you will go the way of dinosaurs, Nokia, Kodak and Blockbuster.

I hope you’ve enjoyed these quick-fire stories, I look forward to hopefully doing more round-ups in the future.

Even though I do not work in the proptech sector but have a strong interest in both the property and tech sectors respectively is that in these uncertain times, and as Proxyclick’s Gregory Blondeau put it in his CBR piece, proptech companies must continue to evolve and innovate to accommodate all the changes coming our way as we navigate through the new norm that COVID-19 has created.

Hope these stories inspired, stay safe! 😎

What have been your fave proptech stories of late? Feel free to tweet me with yours using the hashtag #Proptechstories.

All images used have come from Unsplash.

Articles mentioned/used:

Brazilian proptech Housi set to file for IPO

Proptech platform Offr raises GBP2.7m in funding led by Barclays

Why COVID-19 Has Spurred Innovation in Proptech

Proptech And Fintech Providers Fight To Become Real Estate Market Leaders In Switzerland

How proptech startup iMyanmarHouse remains profitable despite COVID-19