2014 will surely go down in history as a marquee year for tech and online startups in India. No one could have predicted at the start of the year that Indian online companies will see such huge infusion of funds from Venture Capitalists, especially from the global ones. It is expected that India will beat China in 2014 in terms of value of tech funding deals.
Another Indian startup is the latest one to join the ever growing list of companies who have attracted big ticket fundings – Housing.com!
Housing.com, a 2 year old online real estate portal started by 12 IITians has attracted $100 Million funding led by Japan’s Softbank according to a ET report. Softbank has invested USD 70 million and has picked up 30 percent stake in the company. This swells Housing.com’s valuation to over Rs. 1400 Crore. ET has quoted the source as three people who are directly involved in this transaction.
This is Softbank’s third investment in less than a month, all of which have been pretty big deals. They earlier invested $627 million in Snapdeal and led $210 million funding round in Ola Cabs.
Apart from Softbank, other investors who participated in this round include hedge fund Falcon Edge, DST Global and the existing investors including Helion, Nexus and Qualcomm. The new funds raised will be utilized to expand operations, build new technology, increase hiring and marketing spends.
Earlier this year in June , Housing.com had raised $19 million from Helion Venture Partners, Nexus Venture Partners and Qualcomm Ventures. Prior to that in June 2013, when Housing had not even completed their one year of existence, Nexus VP had infused USD 2.5 million. They raised angel round of funding in 2012 led by Zishaan Hayath and clutch of other individual investors.
Housing.com aims to disrupt online real estate market in India. The platform allows users to search for apartments and commercial complexes for rent or for sale. But the differentiating factor with housing.com is their tech platform which allows potential visitors to take virtual tours of each room in the flat or apartment. They have made some interesting moves including picking up housing.com domain name for a whopping USD 1 million.
