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Online real estate platform CommonFloor.com announced on Thursday that it has received a new round of funding from Google Capital, but did not disclose the amount.
Since its inception in 2007, the start-up has mopped up $47.9 million in funding from Tiger Global and Accel Partners in three earlier rounds.
Sumit Jain, co-founder and CEO, CommonFloor.com told BusinessLine that the team is very excited about the investment as it is testimony to Google Capital’s belief in the company’s vision to transform the real estate market in India. “We will invest in innovations in product and technology, marketing and hiring. We look forward to drawing on the technical and operational expertise of Google Capital’s partners and advisors as we continue to scale our business” he said.
Asked about hiring numbers for 2015, Jain said “Getting great people on board is half the job done and very important for us. Hiring will continue. We have just acquired Bakfy, a Bengaluru-based start-up for its founders and team that brings with it the expertise of building a mobile-only social network in the country.”
David Lawee, Partner at Google Capital, said, “CommonFloor.com makes it easy for people to research, buy, sell and rent real estate. The online real estate market in India is poised for tremendous growth, which is why we are excited to work closely with CommonFloor’s excellent team in the years ahead.”
Wide reachCommonFloor.com has more than 1 lakh residential projects from over 200 cities listed on their platform. The platform has already mapped 10 million homes. The company has a team of more than 1,000 employees and was launched in 2007 by Sumit Jain, Lalit Mangal and Vikas Malpani. CommonFloor.com combines property search, apartment management and vendor management and caters to a person’s complete residential requirements.
This investment comes at an exciting time for the online real estate sector in India, fuelled by the Centre’s goal of ‘Housing for All’ by 2022. To achieve this, the Centre is allocating a budget of ₹4,000 crore for affordable housing and introducing incentives for infrastructure financing by the RBI. It has lowered interest rates on home loans, established a framework for REITs and most recently, relaxed FDI norms in the construction sector.
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