In a bid to expand its international operations, Gurgaon-headquartered property search and brokerage firm Square Yards Consulting Pvt Ltd has acquired Singapore-based LUXE Real Estate for an undisclosed amount.
This all-cash transaction will enable Square Yards to get direct access to the prime district areas of Singapore real estate market and make it one of the top 30 agencies by number of agents, the company said in a press statement.
"This deal complements our strategy to have a dominant position in international markets," Kanika Gupta, COO at Square Yards, said in a press statement. The company sees strong demand from countries such as UK and Malaysia. "Improved product sourcing capabilities from global markets will only help us do more business in Gulf countries," said Gupta.
For Square Yards, which operates a portal by the same name, this is the second inorganic move within a fortnight. On June 16, it had announced the decision to merge real estate research portal Realizing.in with itself.
LUXE also provides marketing, sales and rental services for luxury residential and prime commercial real estate in Australia, Hong Kong, China, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia.
As part of the deal, the entire team of LUXE will join Square Yards as agents. LUXE's executive officer Calvin Chao will become Square Yards' director for international projects marketing in Singapore, the statement said. The LUXE website has already been rebranded under square Yards as ‘LUXE - A luxury brand of Square Yards’ and is registered under Square Yards Singapore Pte Ltd.
Chao said: "The global distribution strength that Square Yards is building along with the sourcing capabilities of Luxe would complement each other. Cross-selling portfolios to global investors are the way forward and it is only going to rise in times to come."
Founded in 2013 by husband-wife duo Tanuj Shori and Kanika Gupta, Square Yards offers solutions for property-related needs. It caters to residential projects, hotel projects, student accommodation and mall redevelopment. Shori is an alumnus of IIM-Lucknow and has over a decade’s experience in the capital markets business.
The company had raised $6 million (Rs 32 crore) in a pre-Series A round of funding from a clutch of unnamed investors in May this year. Square Yards claims to have clocked revenues of Rs 38 crore in its first year of operations. It has been involved in real estate transactions worth $350 million since starting operations, Shori had said earlier.
India’s online property search market has evolved radically over the last few years. The leading companies in this space are SoftBank-backed Housing, News Corp-backed PropTiger and Tiger Global, Accel Partners and Google Capital-backed CommonFloor besides the legacy players - Times Internet-promoted MagicBricks, Info Edge’s 99acres.com and Chennai-based IndiaProperty.
With its latest fund raising and technology ramp (courtesy the Realizing.in merger), Square Yards said it now has full-stack capabilities with a 'digital + services business model' to compete with the top players. The company plans to expand its global reach to 20 destinations in the next two quarters and is keen to stitch alliances in other key international markets.
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