This just in: iProperty will invest around $4.4 Million (Rs. 18.8 cr / AUD$5 million) in RealAcres.com. Murli Ramakrishnan, COO of RealAcres told MediaNama that Horizon Infoventures, the parent company of RealAcres, will raise another round of funding by the end of the financial year 2008-09.
The $470,000 investment that we had reported from the AUX filing is meant for the initial setup over six months – to be used for setting up office in Bangalore and Pune, and moving to a larger office in Mumbai. The next tranches of money will come in thereafter, over a period of 3 years. RealAcres has a team of 22 people in Mumbai, which they will expand to 50-55 over three months. They’ll also be hiring 10 people each for Bangalore and Pune. RealAcres began with exhibitions for real estate companies and builders, and now they intend to launch the iProperty Expo in India.
RealAcres will be revamped, and they’re considering rebranding. Interestingly, the site was launched in September 2005, a week after Info Edge’s real estate portal 99acres went live. We’d reported on RealAcres being acquired by the Australian Stock Exchange listed online real estate IPGA (iProperty) company a few days ago.
