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Asia’s leading property portal PropertyGuru has attracted a $175 million investment to accelerate growth in Southeast Asia from a strategic consortium of investors comprising TPG, Emtek Group and Square Peg Capital.
This marks the largest investment into a Southeast Asian tech company in 2015.
Here is the full statement from PropertyGuru released this morning:
PropertyGuru Group (“PropertyGuru”), Asia’s leading online property portal group, announced today that it has received a S$175 million investment from a strategic consortium of three investors. This investment, the largest in the technology sector in Southeast Asia this year, will support PropertyGuru’s innovation, marketing and further expansion in the region with the aim of increasing its leadership position.
The investing consortium comprises global private investment firm TPG (“TPG”), Indonesia’s largest media group Emtek Group (“Emtek”), and leading Asia Pacific-based tech venture capital firm Square Peg Capital (“Square Peg”). The transaction is expected to close by mid-June, at which point representatives from the consortium will join PropertyGuru’s board.
As the leading property portal in Southeast Asia, PropertyGuru has built market leadership across Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia, garnering over 11 million monthly consumer visits, 104 million page views and a 28% traffic growth per annum, with mobile making up 52% of total traffic. The value of real estate transactions through the PropertyGuru platform is estimated to be S$14 billion per annum; an approximate 10% of all property transactions in the region.
“PropertyGuru has built its track record on a vision of consumer-centric innovation that empowers people to make better property decisions. We will capitalise on this investment to tap into the Southeast Asia property market potential and developments in the digital space to further our regional agenda,” said Steve Melhuish, CEO and co-founder of PropertyGuru.
This latest round of investment brings on board deep-seated Asian management expertise, with all three parties possessing strong track records in the online and tech firms sectors.
“PropertyGuru is already the region’s leading real estate platform, with exciting growth prospects. It represents a great addition to TPG’s Asia portfolio as well as strengthens our global internet investment reach. We look forward to lending our industry expertise to pursue growth, in partnership with the PropertyGuru team, Emtek Group and Square Peg. Together, we believe we can further reinforce PropertyGuru’s already powerful brand, as we’ve done with similar portfolio companies across the globe,” said Ganen Sarvananthan, TPG Partner and Managing Director.
TPG already owns complementary internet and real estate companies in its portfolio, including Uber, Airbnb, Lynda.com, SurveyMonkey, RentPath and 8990 (Philippines), among others.
Paul Bassat, Partner and co-Founder of Square Peg, said, “Square Peg sees tremendous potential for PropertyGuru to continue to innovate and expand on its market leading positions in multiple geographies. This investment underscores Square Peg’s philosophy of building and investing in businesses, which have the capacity to leverage multiple growth levers from positions of strength.”
Emtek Group is already PropertyGuru’s partner in Indonesia and will now further strengthen its relationship through this latest round of investment. Emtek Group’s Commissioner, Jay Wacher said, “Consistent with Emtek’s focus of investing in technologies that shape businesses and the broader society and where it can leverage its media expertise, this investment in PropertyGuru presents a prime opportunity for us to deepen our exposure to the online classified’s business. Our investment is aimed at fast-tracking PropertyGuru’s plans to innovate ahead of market needs and extend its leadership in the property space.”
“We’re delighted to be working with three outstanding investors who each bring complementary strengths and share our vision on the market’s opportunities. We look forward to accelerating our leadership in South East Asia with their support,” Steve Melhuish added.
Scout24 – previously a minority shareholder will exit the business to focus on their core wholly-owned property and car online classified businesses in Europe.
Image: Steve Melhuish, CEO of PropertyGuru Group.
Romesh Navaratnarajah, Singapore Editor at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact him about this or other stories email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
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