Housing.com parent firm acquires home rental platform FastFox for nearly Rs 100 cr

New Delhi: Elara Technologies, which owns three realty portals Housing.com, PropTiger and Makaan, Monday said it has acquired home rental brokerage platform FastFox.com at a valuation of nearly Rs 100 crore as part of its growth plans.

With this acquisition, Singapore-based Elara, which is backed by News Corp and Softbank, has entered the online-to-offline home rentals space that has a market size of over Rs 20,000 crore.

"Until now we were in the home rentals market through listings on both our platforms, Housing.com and Makaan.com. With this acquisition, we will now provide end-to-end on-ground assistance to both landlords and tenants in collaboration with other brokers," Elara Technologies CEO Dhruv Agarwala told PTI.

The acquisition has been done at a valuation of nearly Rs 100 crore, he said.

"For the time being, we will retain the FastFox brand," he said, adding that the entire 120 people of FastFox would now become part of Elara.

Currently, Elara Technologies is growing at a rate of more than 60 per cent year-on-year and the new acquisition will further help the company to become the clear market leader in digital real estate in the country, he added.

"We intend to use our capital and expertise to expand FastFox's offering beyond Gurugram to other markets in India," Agarwala said.

FastFox.com co-founder and CEO Pallav Pandey said: "Housing.com's data, technology and demand generation capabilities combined with the unique on-ground fulfilment capabilities of FastFox.com is the perfect recipe for success in the home rentals market."

Mukul Bhati is also a co-founder of FastFox.com, which has Investors like Lightspeed Venture Partners and Blume Ventures among others.

FastFox.com is an online-to-offline (O2O) brokerage firm that operates mainly in the Gurugram and in the last 12 months it has captured nearly 5 per cent share of the home rentals market in the city.

FastFox.com has introduced 'Open House' model for rentals in India, in which a house is open for viewing by home seekers for a scheduled period of time.

Elara Techologies created realty portal PropTiger.com in 2011 and later acquired Makaan.com in May 2015 and Housing.com in January 2017.

PropTiger is into housing brokerage business while Housing.com is a classified platform for both developers and brokers. Makaan.com is a free marketplace where brokers list properties for buy-sell as well as renting.

Elara Technologies has raised USD 105 million so far from investors as equity. It also raised USD 35 million debt last year for organic and inorganic growth.