Citi Group’s Singapore division has pumped $35 million (nearly Rs 245 crore) in Elara Technologies, which owns online real estate startups Housing.com, PropTiger.com and Makaan.com. According to reports, the funds were raised through debt instrument.
Elara Technologies, which is also based in Singapore, will use the latest fund infusion for various business expansion purposes. This includes hiring 150 new employees to consolidate its sales team and investment in new products and technologies.
This is the first time that Elara Technologies has raised funds through a debt instrument. The company has so far raised $ 105 million through multiple equity funding rounds.
Elara made foray in India’s online real estate space in 2011 by founding PropTiger.com. PropTiger primarily helps in selling brand new flats available in metropolitan cities. Simultaneously, PropTiger is a one stop platform that helps home buyers to secure loans and legal assistance for buying new flats.
The company further consolidated its presence in the online retail space by acquiring Makaan.com in 2015 and Housing.com in 2017. The acquisition of these two promising startups brought propositional values for Elara technologies. While Makaan.com largely deals In resale flats, Housing is a classified online platform for builders, brokers and home-owners.
Elara claims that all its three online portals are delivering robust results. The company said that PropTiger’s revenue grew by almost 40% during first six months of the current financial year. The online portal is expected to turn profitable by end of the current financial year, the company added.
With unprecedented growth of technology, online portals like PropTiger have made it real easy for people to buy homes. However, even today the usage for online real estate portal is still very minuscule as even today most people continue to follow traditional methods to strike real estate deals.