Google Capital invests in CommonFloor.com, real-estate market in India heats up

CommonFloor.com, India’s leading online real estate platform, announced that it has received a new round of funding from Google Capital. This is Google Capital’s third investment in Asia and only its second in India. This brings a strong validation to the burgeoning tech startup ecosystem in India.

Sumit Jain, Co- founder and CEO at CommonFloor.com, said,

This investment shows that Google Capital believes in CommonFloor and our vision to transform the real estate market in India. We look forward to drawing on the technical and operational expertise of Google Capital's partners and advisers as we continue to scale our business.

David Lawee, Partner at Google Capital, said,

CommonFloor.com makes it easy for people in India to research, buy, sell and rent real estate. The online real estate market in India is poised for tremendous growth, which is why we're excited to work closely with CommonFloor's excellent team in the months and years ahead.

This investment comes at an exciting time for the online real estate sector in India, fueled by the Indian government’s goal of providing 'Housing for All' by 2022.  To achieve this, the government is allocating a budget of Rs 4,000 crore for affordable housing, 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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Jain adds, “This will further fuel our vision to empower people to realize their property dreams. We continue to exhibit industry leading growth; the money raised will be strategically invested in making the platform more robust to enable the buyers and sellers to find their match faster.” CommonFloor.com has more than 1 lakh residential projects listed on its platform from over 200 cities, more than any other property platform in India. The platform has already mapped 10 million homes and is committed to map every property in India on its platform. The company has a team of 1000+ employees and their constant endeavor is to get the best talent to work with them. Yesterday we reported CommonFloor's acquisition of Bakfy and earlier, in 2014 its acquisition of Flat.to.

In an interview to YourStory in July 2013, Sumit had mentioned about their drive to make a tangible difference in the lives of Indian consumers. "We are really passionate about how we can use technology to solve people’s requirements around their homes. Home is where we spend most of our time and 70% of our daily use expenditure is made in the radius of 2 km of our home. Yet, we pay no attention to improving the quality of living around our homes. I think the team at Commonfloor.com has a great opportunity to change the way communities live. To be able to drive that change and have that kind of positive impact on society is a huge motivating factor."

Commenting on the funding coming in this space, Karan Mohla, VP, IDG Ventures India says

With overall real estate demand having stagnated in the year or so, online distribution of inventory has become an important channel of distribution for builders. On the pure listing model, the main challenges for the classified platforms will be to provide accurate information and continuous improvement in the product for the end-consumer. These will get consumers get over the hump and help evolve their buying behaviour for real estate online. Ongoing innovations and providing ancillary services and tools like walk-through videos, location based searches, price maps and especially mobile-based utility services will take this platform to the next wave of potential consumers who are looking to purchase real-estate for the first time.

You should read:

6 years, 3 rounds of funding and some enormous growth: With Sumit Jain, Co-Founder, CommonFloor

How to build a community around your product – a CommonFloor crack code