BalrajNoBroker, a Bengaluru-based real estate platform, has raised $210 million in its Series E round, bringing its total funding to $361 million. The investment was led by existing investors General Atlantic and Tiger Global Management, and it also featured participation from Moore Strategic Ventures.
Courtesy: NoBroker
With this, the PropTech (property tech) startup claims to be the first in the sector to enter the elite unicorn club in the Indian startup ecosystem. NoBroker is the 37th Indian startup to achieve a billion-dollar valuation in 2021, after Thrasio-style e-commerce startup Mensa Brands. Similarly, the funding granted it in securing the 79th position among Indian unicorn startups.
The proceeds, according to the company, will be allocated to further investing in NoBrokerHood, a tech-enabled security management system as well as a classifieds platform for gated communities. The company, which currently employs 150 personnel, aims to double its workforce by FY22.
NoBroker plans to leverage this capital to expand its presence across the six cities which include Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad Mumbai, Pune, and Delhi-NCR where it currently has a presence as well as to launch in the top 50 cities within the next 2-3 years. NoBroker claims that it will be launched as a one-stop destination in all of the new cities where it will foray.
NoBroker, a real estate rental platform founded by Akhil Gupta, Amit Kumar Agarwal, and Saurabh Garg, in 2014, offers verified listings from property owners with no brokerage charges for intermediaries. The startup’s secondary business comprises the NoBroker Financial Service platform, which offers house loans, and the NoBroker Home Services platform, which offers movers and packers, legal paperwork, among other services.
It also introduced NoBrokerHood, a tech-based security management solution that claims to improve visitor management within residential accommodations while parallelly offering a platform for verified users.
NoBroker has attracted funding from high-profile investors which include General Atlantic, Tiger Global, Elevation Capital, Moore Capital, Beenext, and KTB Ventures. It counts Anand Chandrasekaran and Vijay Shekhar Sharma as angel investors in the company. NoBroker also claims to have more than 75 lakh properties have been registered on its platform, and served around 1.6 crore customers.
According to Tofler, the startup posted revenue of Rs 79 crore in FY20, up from Rs 30 crore in FY19. It also recorded an EBITDA loss of Rs 98 crore for the same period, up from Rs 46 crore in FY19. NoBroker’s core platform generates the most revenue, with 500K+ transactions (properties sold or rented) per year.
Currently, the real estate sector accounts for about 6-7 percent of overall GDP. It is likely to have a market capitalization of $1 trillion by 2030, adding 13 percent of the country’s GDP by 2025.
NoBroker competes directly with Housing.com, MagicBricks, 99Acres, and Makaan.com among other platforms in the property listings space.