Housing.com, the popular-for-various-reasons online real-estate platform is now reportedly close to raising north of $35 Million from existing investors Softbank, reports ET. While the amount isn’t confirmed, the company is not looking outside existing investors to raise funds, confirmed CBO Jason Kothari.
It is also being reported that the new funding deal will value the company at Rs. 2,260 crore. In the last round of funding, which was raised in December 2014, the company was valued at Rs. 1,500 crore.
Jason Kothari said that the company’s focus is currently only on execution. He is working as Chief Business Officer of Housing and has been assigned task to increase the efficiency of the company. Housing is currently run by an executive committee, led by Jonathan Bullock of SoftBank, which controls the finances and operations of the company.
In order to generate more revenue, the company has also forayed into advertising and branding segment with the launch of Brand Falcon, which aims at providing real-estate developers with a powerful and effective medium to communicate their brand story to consumers.
Earlier, there were also reports suggesting that the Chinese company – SouFun is interested in Housing, for a potential investment or buyout. It also got attention of Baidu, the largest search engine of China. But, so far, it appears that the deal didn’t materialize.
SoftBank currently owns about 32 percent of Housing and has invested about $100 million in the company. The company also counts Nexus Venture Partners and Helion Ventures as its early investors.
Till now, it has raised around $139.5 million in 4 funding round from Nexus Venture Partners, Helion Venture Partners, Qualcomm Ventures and SoftBank Capital. The company has 6,000 brokers and serves 40 cities in India including Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata and Delhi.
