Lamudi, the Rocket Internet backed real estate listings site for Asian markets like Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and others, announced on Wednesday that it has raised a fresh round of investment worth $31.4 million. The company said that this new capital will be utilized to further expand operations in Latin America and Asia.
The real estate company currently operates in 30 countries around the globe, out of which 9 are emerging markets in Asia and Latin America. These include: Philippines, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Colombia and Peru. The company’s initial aim is to provide better services in the aforementioned emerging markets for now, which is in stark contrasts of Rocket Internet’s earlier strategy — swarming into newer markets as soon as capital comes in. But considering how Rocket has been on the receiving end for most part of last year, the move is understandable.
The latest investment round was by far the most valuable for the company yet. It raised a capital of almost $31.4 million and was led by a trio of Rocket Internet stalwarts: Asia Pacific Internet Group, Tengelmann Ventures and HV Holtzbrinck Ventures. All 3 firms have been existing investors of Lamudi for a while now.
The company’s previous investment rounds brought in $18 million and $7 million in 2015 and 2014, respectively. Also worth noting is the fact that the 2015 round was led by the same trio of investors as this year.
Lamudi operates in two different businesses: the aforementioned operation in Asia and Latin America nd a sister business that covers Africa and the Middle East, which is backed by Rocket Internet-affiliated Africa Internet Group but isn’t part of this round. And even though they operate under the same name, they are entirely different entities.
The company saw an increase in revenue by 460% last year and it expects the growth rate to increase this year by multiple fold. Lamudi’s co-founder and managing director Philipp Hermann said that the new capital will be used for further expansion of the company and making it profitable later.
We are growing our revenues at rapid speed and this money would definitely be enough to become profitable.
said Hermann
While investments might be seeing the bright side of the moon, the company will still have difficulty in expansion in markets like Myanmar and Bangladesh, where Internet adoption is quite low, as of now, and Pakistan, which has its very own site for real estate listing called Zameen.
Zameen recently raised a series-C funding worth $20 million and operates in multiple locations. The local rival for Lamudi is also looking to expand its reach to other countries including Bangladesh soon.
