Ever since Quikr launched its real estate portal QuikrHomes, it has been reported to be in talks with some of the biggest startups of the segment such as Housing.com and CommonFloor for acqisition. Today, the company has announced that it has acquired real-estate analytics startup realtycompass for an undisclosed amount.
Realtycompass was founded by Nimesh Bhandari, Sankara Srinivasan and Alok Mishra in 2013. After the acquisition, Quikr will continue to invest in the company and will further develop the platform to introduce new features such as project approvals, social sentiment analysis and user credit score, etc.
Currently, the company’s platform helps consumers and investors in the decision-making process by providing builder ratings and detailed project analysis.
Pranay Chulet, founder and chief executive of Quikr, said –
Real estate is a key category for us. We have been keenly developing some innovations that have the potential to reshape the market landscape and the acquisition of realtycompass will help us bring more such solutions to our users.
This is Quikr’s second acquisition in the space of real estate. Earlier, the company had acquired Indian Realty Exchange (IRX). The company has also made an investment in AN Virtual World Tech Ltd., which runs 360-degree street views local search engine called WoNoBo.com.
With acquiring startups related to the real estate space, the company aims to strengthen its own real-estate portal – QuikrHomes. The company is also said to be in talks to merge CommonFloor to QuikrHomes in a deal which could be worth around $200 million.
In October, the company was reported to be in talks with Housing.com for acquisition, which didn’t materialize even when the company is struggling with senior management team and revenues.
Commenting on the acquisition, Nimesh Bhandari, CEO of realtycompass, said,
Our team has created a world class product and combined with the reach of the Quikr platform we aim to bring transparency across the real-estate market. We will continue to operate as a stand-alone portal and will focus on building real estate analytics products for both consumers and builders.
In the space of real-estate, Quikr competes with the likes of PropTiger, Housing, MagicBricks, Square Yards, etc.
According to the report from KPMG, The real estate sector is expected to reach $853 billion by 2028 and its contribution to India’s gross domestic product will be around 13 percent.
