12th Jan 2017 New Delhi- Square Yards, India’s largest online to offline (O2O) real estate transaction player, has raised US $10Mn investment in the form of convertible notes from multiple individual investors primarily based outside India. The notes are issued for a fixed term at a pre-determined coupon rate and with an option to convert into equity (at a discount) on reaching the next funding milestone.
Combined with the recently announced $12 million equity funding from the private equity arm of Mr. Anil Ambani led Reliance Group, the new investment takes the total amount of funds raised by the company to approximately $33 million since its inception in 2013.
Tanuj Shori, Founder & CEO, Square Yards, said, “We wanted to maintain a healthy mix in our balance sheet without diluting too much of equity at this stage of our growth. The new financing would help us accelerate our expansion into newer international geographies and at the same time strengthen our existing distribution network in 10+ countries.”
Added Kanika Gupta Shori, Founder & COO, Square Yards, “For this latest investment round, we reached out to our own set of real estate clients in International locations through our NRI sales teams. The fact that the majority of these new funds have been invested by our existing clients, is a testimony to the trust and confidence they have in us.”
The Indian Real Estate tech sector is witnessing significant consolidation activity with some big ticket mergers & acquisitions announced recently. Square Yards has acquired a leadership position in the transactions space and claims to be twice the size of its nearest competitor that got merged with a classified & listing player. It currently boasts of net revenue run rate of $1.5Mn - $2Mn per month (annualized ~ $25Mn) and transaction run rate of ~600-800/month.
The company sources exclusive structured mandates from top Indian & International developers and employs multimodal distribution strategy through its strong network of direct sales in India and NRI markets, channel partners and e-commerce. The company recently crossed USD 1 Billion in Gross Transactional Value (GTV) in terms of total value of properties sold on its platform. It has also focused heavily on overall customer experience resulting in a very healthy 21% repeat customers – those who have bought multiple properties through Square Yards.
Square Yards also provides specialized real estate allied service expertise through its group companies. Its financial arm, Square Capital brings home loan assistance and mortgage fulfilment capabilities. The marketing arm, Bling Marketing offers 360-degree marketing solutions to real estate developers. It also plans to venture into comprehensive property management and home furnishing segment in the near future.
About Square Yards:
Square Yards is a technology-enabled transaction and aggregation platform for Global real estate. Founded in 2013, Square Yards is already the #1 pan-India distributor by revenues for the primary residential real estate in India, and it enjoys a leadership position in the NRI markets.
By consolidating supply and demand, Square Yards is creating significant barriers of entry through scale, sourcing capabilities, demand aggregation, and use of technology to enable an omni-channel distribution platform which will help consolidate its positioning as one of the most innovative, largest and scalable commerce platforms in India.
Square Yards is led by accomplished professionals, comprising former bankers, and top business & engineering school alumni and is backed by the competence of more than 1100 employees in 22 cities and 10 countries.