SoftBank’s fondness for India’s start-up scene is continuing to increase, and that too, at a rapid pace. After investing a hefty $210 Million in Uber-rival Ola Cabs, the Japanese conglomerate has now invested $90 Million in Mumbai-based property search website Housing.com.
Prices may be soaring high in India’s real-estate sector, but as far as its online presence is concerned, companies have been raising huge funds lately. PropTiger recently raised a $30 Million investment from U.S. Media giant NewsCorp. and now Housing.com has raised a triple of that to spice up India’s online real-estate market.
Housing.com plans to use the funds to map over 40 million houses across 300 cities in India and provide On-Off buttons to home owners and agents. These On-Off buttons will convert all the curated houses database into assets for Housing.com, and can be
reactivated when they’re again available in the market.
Advitiya Sharma, Co-Founder of Housing.com said,
Ever since we started the company we had a huge vision, to help millions of people struggling to find Real Estate that meets their requirements perfectly. We’ve put in all our focus into building great products and mapping every single house in the country, on the platform. In our journey we have been fortunate to have found great partners in our investors, and the whole team is excited to work with SoftBank and achieve this vision together.
This investment comes on the backdrop of SoftBank’s recent announcement to invest a staggering $10 Billion in India. Nikesh Arora, Vice Chairman of SoftBank Corp. and CEO of SIMI said,
We are big believers in India’s digital future and its potential to improve peoples’ lives. The Housing.com team has a great vision and deep insight into what it takes to build great products, and transform the way people research and transact in real estate. We look forward to working with and supporting Housing.com’s growth.
Recently Housing.com launched “Slice View”, the world’s first interactive home booking platform, in a campaign encompassing four projects across three cities. The company claims to have exclusively marketed more than half of the inventory and generated over 50 Cr of Gross Merchandise Value through the Slice View platform in just five days since its launch.
