Online real estate services portal PropTiger has acquired real estate classifieds portal Makaan.com, though Makaan.com will continue operating as an independent entity as of now. The terms of the deal and deal size have not been disclosed. Following this deal, Makaan.com CEO Aditya Verma will be reporting to PropTiger co-founder & CEO Dhruv Agarwala.
PropTiger will now start listing properties on its sites, along with the services it offers home buyers, real estate developers, property brokers, banks and private equity investors. It’s also worth noting that Makaan.com had recently launched a real estate investment section (currently in beta).
PropTiger, which offers home buyers services such as site visits, price negotiations, documentation, home financing, registration and post sales services, claims to have sold around 12,000 homes worth about $1.2 billion since 2011. The company, which also provides real estate consulting and data services to real estate developers, private equity investors and banks, has a team of over 500 people including engineers, product experts and property advisors in eight major Indian cities. On the other hand, Makaan.com, which was founded in 2007, was one of the first online real estate marketplaces in India. It claims to currently have around 200,000 active property listings on the site and that 40% of Makaan.com’s traffic comes from mobile.
Out of Box Interaction acquisition: The current deal comes on the back of PropTiger acquiring user interface design firm Out of Box Interaction, earlier this month. At the time, PropTiger had mentioned that this acquisition will allow it to improve the user interface of its website and to display real estate projects in a more immersive way.
In November last year, News Corp had picked up a 25% stake in Elara Technologies that owns PropTiger.com for $30 million. As part of the investment, News Corp Senior Vice President (Strategy) Raju Narisetti joined Elara’s Singapore-based board. For PropTiger, this investment was a strategic one, since News Corp mentioned that PropTiger will able to make use of its digital and product expertise, especially with REA and Move. PropTiger had earlier raised $5 million from Accel Partners and SAIF Partners in April 2012.
