Property listings portal NoBroker.com said on Thursday it has raised $51 million (around Rs 354 crore at the current exchange rate) in a Series C round of funding led by private equity firm General Atlantic.
Existing investors SAIF Partners and Beenext also took part in the funding round, NoBroker said in a statement. The round takes the total funding it has raised so far to $71 million.
The startup, operated by Bengaluru-based NoBroker Technologies Solutions Pvt. Ltd, is a home rental and purchase platform that helps users find homes without paying any brokerage. It currently offers end-to-end services in five cities: Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, Chennai and Gurugram.
“This current funding round will support us in our plans to expand our operations,” said Amit Kumar, chief executive officer of NoBroker.com. “Our objective is to accelerate customer and deal-closure growth and continue to deliver value to customers across the country. We will also invest in our home store and financial services product.”
The startup was founded in 2013 by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) graduates Akhil Gupta, Amit Agarwal and Saurabh Garg. NoBroker claims to have registered more than 2.5 million properties on its platform, with 6 million individuals availing of the portal’s services.
The firm also launched the Home Store, which is a one-stop shop for services including loans, packers and movers, legal documentation, among others.
In its previous funding rounds, NoBroker.com had raised $10 million in its Series B funding round from Beenext, Beenos and other investors in 2016 and secured $3 million from SAIF Partners and Fulcrum Capital in 2015.
VCCircle had reported earlier this week that NoBroker had raised Rs 17 crore ($2.4 millIon) in venture debt from Trifecta Capital.
US-based General Atlantic’s bet on NoBroker comes on the heels of its recent big-ticket investment in ed-tech firm Byju’s.
The PE firm has been operating in India since 1999. It has about a dozen investment professionals in India and focuses on sectors such as financial services, internet and technology, business services, retail, consumer and healthcare.
Deals in the property-tech segment
In the recent past, several online ventures catering to the real estate sector have either raised fresh funding or attracted takeover interest.
A week ago, Bengaluru-based Zaasna Proptech Pvt. Ltd raised Rs 2 crore ($286,000) in a seed funding round from investors including learning platform Udacity chief operating officer Lalit Singh and Microsoft worldwide support leader Sanjay Sharma.
Last month, Bengaluru-based online home rental startup Nestaway Technologies Pvt. Ltd raised $10 million (around Rs 70 crore) in a fresh round of funding co-led by existing investors Tiger Global and Chiratae Ventures (formerly IDG Ventures).
Elara Technologies Pte. Ltd, the owner of property portals Housing.com, Makaan.com and PropTiger.com, announced in April that it had acquired home rental startup FastFox.com.
In May last year, FastFox had acquired property and broker review platform Roofpik for an undisclosed amount.
VCCircle reported late last year that Monest, a platform that lets users search and rate real estate agents as well as share their needs with property dealers, was in talks to raise Series A funding from wealthy individuals and developers.
Before that, Delhi-based home rental services marketplace ZiffyHomes had acquired peer Nivaasa. And in February that year, it bought rival Fella Homes.
