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Vietnam’s Propzy raises $25mln Series A led by SoftBank Ventures Asia

Khanh Minh Wednesday | 06/10/2020 09:33

Propzy has handled more than $1 billion in property transactions since its launch. Photo: Propzy

Vietnamese offline-to-online real estate platform Propzy has raised a $25 million Series A led by Gaw Capital and SoftBank Ventures Asia, a venture arm of Japanese SoftBank Group, TechCrunch reported.

Other investors include Next Billion Ventures, RHL Ventures, Breeze, FEBE Ventures, RSquare, and Insignia, the news outlet cited information from the company’s founder and CEO John Le.

The Vietnam-based startup that guides consumers through the entire process of a real estate transaction currently has 30 brick-and-mortar sales centers, with a total of 400 sales staff.

The startup plans to increase the number of sale centers to 70 that employ 1,300 sales staff over the next 18 months.

The sales centers complement Propzy’s online marketplace, with tens of thousands of properties pre-screened by its staff before they are entered into listings. Le said Propzy has handled more than $1 billion in property transactions since its launch, making it the largest offline-to-online real estate network in Vietnam.

The fund will be used to grow its product line and provide a balance sheet for its expansion into direct mortgage financing. Most of Propzy’s current operations are in Ho Chi Minh City.

It plans to expand into Hanoi through the rest of this year and 2021, before exploring other Southeast Asian markets, including potentially Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

Instead of proptech, Propzy founder and CEO John Le prefers the term “firetech” to describe the startup, using “fire” as an acronym for financial, insurance and real estate technology.

Founded in 2016, Propzy’s technology covers almost every stage of a real estate transaction, from brick-and-mortar sales centers to an online marketplace for listings, financial products like mortgage lending and, finally, enterprise software for property managers and tenants.

Le is a serial entrepreneur and his past startups include LoanTrader, a mortgage trading platform that was backed by Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and GE Capital.

In 2009, he went to Vietnam to launch an international credit bureau with TransUnion. During that time, he realized how burdensome the process of renting or buying property there can be.

The pandemic has put downward pressure on Vietnam’s real estate market, with a 70% reduction in Propzy’s business during the country’s nationwide lockdown in April. On the other hand, more people were doing searches online and inquiring about selling property, Le told TechCrunch.

“We’re carrying an all-time high pipeline of deals, as consumers start to have more confidence and know where the market will be in two to three months,” Le added.

“People still need houses, so deals in the pipeline are three times over the fourth-quarter average. We expect them to close quickly, so we are on a good path to hitting our numbers at the end of the year.”

Source: TechCrunch

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