Magicbricks acquires analytics portal Properji.com

Bengaluru: Real estate portal Magicbricks on Thursday said it has acquired property research and analysis portal Properji.com for an undisclosed amount.

Magicbricks Realty Services Ltd which operates Magicbricks.com in a statement referred to the acquisition as an acqui-hire, where a company is acquired for its talent rather than its products.

The acquisition brings on board Priya Maheshwari and Guruprasad Bangle, co-founders of Invact Technologies Pvt. Ltd that operates Properji.com.

The news of the acqui-hire comes at a time when online realty portals have had to raise funds at lower valuations to stay afloat in a sluggish realty market or sell out to larger rivals.

“This acqui-hire will help the consumer to make an informed property buying decision. With Properji’s expertise, we hope to inject confidence and strong decision support to buyers,” said Sudhir Pai, chief executive at Magicbricks.com in the statement. Magicbricks claims to have 80,000 projects and over 1.2 million listings.

Properji.com, which started operations in 2013, has collected proprietary data which helps it produce information on project reports, helping home buyers make more informed decisions.

“Armed with the research and in-depth analysis that we are providing, consumers will now have strong tools to decipher the realty market in a much better way”, said Bangle of Properji in the statement.

The pressure on online portals has been building up in recent months as revenues continue to decline in the backdrop of a slowdown in the real estate sector.

Bengaluru-based online real estate portal Commonfloor (maxHeap Technologies Pvt. Ltd) laid off at least 100 of its employees after the company was acquired by larger rival Quikr India Pvt. Ltd in January 2016, Mint reported on March 14, 2016.

Commonfloor was acquired for an estimated $120 million by Quikr in a deal orchestrated by Tiger Global, a common investor in both companies.

The estimated deal value of $120 million was much lower than its $150 million valuation when Commonfloor had raised Rs.60 crore from Google Capital in December 2014. It has so far raised 321 crore from Tiger Global, Accel Partners and Google Capital since 2011.