Extending its current Series B funding round, NoBroker, which aims to eliminate the broker interference while buying property, has raised a fresh funding of Rs. 50 crore. The funding is received from South Korean investment firm KTB Ventures.
This is the very first investment by KTB Ventures in the Indian market. KTB Ventures, which is the venture capital arm of KTB Network, has been investing in early-stage startups since early 2016.
Commenting on the investment, Chun Soo Kim, team manager for investment screening at KTB, said:
India’s domestic market is large, it is growing and has a very young population. We are happy to look at any Indian startup which has expertise in the area and is innovating to disrupt the status quo.
With this latest funding round, the total funding raised by the company in Series B round stands at $17 million. Earlier, the company had raised $10 million in Series B round from Japan-based investors Beenext and Digital Garage along with Singapore-based Qualgro, Asuka Holdings’ Mamoru Taniya, and existing investor SAIF Partners.
A couple of months ago, Anand Chandrasekaran, former CPO of Snapdeal and Airtel had invested in the company. NoBroker has also roped in Vijay Sharma, founder and CEO of Paytm as an investor and advisor.
The additional funding raised by the company will be used to expand its presence in the top five cities in India and will soon launch in the north, says Amit Agarwal, CEO of NoBroker. He also said that they have decided to restrict scale, in view of profitability. Further, he added that the portal gets more than 1 lakh new customers every month.
NoBroker was founded in 2013 by three IIT and IIM alum – Akhil Gupta, Amit Agarwal and Saurabh Garg. The company offers subscription fee-based services to potential tenants and home owners, bypassing the ubiquitous real estate broker.
It has developed an algorithm that can scour the internet to verify that each new sign-up is a prospective tenant and not a broker, claims the company. In addition to facilitating connections between two parties, the startup also provides the necessary legal documents which are customized for every deal. It also offers ancillary services such as connecting customers with moving and packing agents, undertaking rent negotiations and assisting with the drawing up of rental agreements.
