Proptech start-up NoBroker enters unicorn club with $210 mn funding

More than 7.5 million properties are already registered on the portal

Bengaluru-based NoBroker has become the first property tech start-up to enter the unicorn club, raising $210 million in its Series E round. 

The funding was led by General Atlantic, Tiger Global Management, and Moore Strategic Ventures, the company said on Tuesday. This brings the funding raised by NoBroker to date to $361 million. 

The online platform allows customers to do all manner of real estate transactions digitally, ranging from rental or outright sale to value-added services like home loans, packers and movers, legal documentation, and online rent payment.

It operates in six cities: Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, and Delhi-NCR.

More than 7.5 million properties are registered on the portal and over 16 million people have used the platform’s service.

The company was launched in 2013 and raised a seed round led by Elevation Capital.

“We have signed up 10,000 societies and the objective would be to reach 100,000 societies in two years,” said Amit Agarwal, co-founder and chief executive officer of NoBroker.com.

Saurabh Garg, co-founder and chief business officer of NoBroker.com, said: “This funding will help us reach out to more customers in the current and new cities and help us streamline the real estate journey from search to shifting into your house to even managing your society with the help of technology.”

“We are seeing an upward trend in the property-buying segment and this funding will help us deepen our investment in resale and primary sale verticals,” he added.

The company is planning to use the money raised to invest more in the existing markets and expand to cities like Kolkata, Surat, Nagpur, and Visakhapatnam. It wants to be in 50 cities in India in the next two-three years.

“From Diwali, we have been seeing huge rental demand in all the cities we are in. We are growing faster than the pre-pandemic days. A lot of people left metro cities for home during the pandemic, but generally what we have seen is that they are bachelors and from small families,” said Garg.

On the possibility of a backlash from brokers as it expanded to more cities, Agarwal said the market was large enough for them and online brokers to co-exist. 

The company did not share the revenue numbers, but said its earnings had been growing three times annually. 

It aims to become profitable in the next two-three years.

Founded by IITians Akhil Gupta, Amit Kumar Agarwal, and Saurabh Garg in 2013, the company intends to formalise India’s largely unorganised real estate industry. The platform had earlier raised funds from investors such as Elevation Capital, Beenext, and KTB Ventures.

Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Anand Chandrasekaran are angel investors in the company.

Homing In On Growth

• NoBroker is a platform that allows home discovery, rentals and purchases at zero brokerage fees online

• The company was launched in 2013 by IITians Akhil Gupta, Amit Kumar Agarwal, Saurabh Garg

• It raised a total funding of $361 million from General Atlantic, Tiger Global, Elevation Capital, Moore  Capital, Beenext and KTB Ventures till date

• The company is present in six cities -- Bangalore, Chennai,  Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune. It aims to expand to 50 cities in the next 2-3 years

• NoBroker has signed up 10,000 societies till now and aims to aggressively grow and reach 1 lakh societies in next two years