Online classifieds platform Quikr is now announcing the acquisition of Indian Realty Exchange, a platform that aggregates real estate agents for an undisclosed amount. With the acquisition, the company aims to strengthen its real estate vertical – QuikrHomes.
In order to explore new ways to generate revenues, Quikr is trying to strengthen its position for five particular categories on its portal – automobiles, real estate, jobs, services and customer-to-customer sales. The company claims that these five categories account for about 90% of the 10 million listings on the platform.
Indian Realty Exchange helps users connect to the agents for buying and selling property, and updates listings with locations in real time and features agent reviews, rankings, trust networks. It also has a chat platform for agents so that they can exchange inventory and requirements with users and other agents.
This acquisition of Indian Realty Exchange will allow Quikr to gain access to real estate agents. As per the company, QuikrHomes currently has customers in 1,000 cities and towns across India and concludes 200,000 transactions per month.
Reality forums have suddenly become a hot media property for digital real-estate platforms.While these platforms obviously have 1000s of consumers and real estate agents discussing projects, it also gives these platforms an edge over rivals by giving them a direct marketing punch. Housing.com made a similar acquisition by buying IREF for $1.2 Million.
Founded in 2088 by Pranay Chulet and Jiby Thomas, Quikr is a community-based classifieds website that helps people find and sell products and services across diverse categories. Till now, it has raised $346 million in six funding rounds from 10 investors.
QuikrHomes – a real estate marketplace for builders, brokers and home seekers was launched in September 2015. In the Indian online real-state space, it competes with CommonFloor, Housing.com, PropTiger, NoBroker, and Magic Bricks.
