Online agent easyProperty is reported to be raising nearly £15m from a top City investor, far more than it had planned in its latest fund-raising round.
Such a deal would take the valuation of easyProperty, which last night had just over 350 available property listings, to over £100m.
The firm gazing at such a valuation last night had 147 available properties listed for sale on Rightmove, and 205 available rental properties.
easyProperty, which launched in September last year, had been looking to raise £5m in its latest fund raising round, to accelerate its growth.
The latest move, reported by Sky News, follows the likely valuation of rival Purplebricks at nearly £250m as it looks to list on AIM next week. According to Sky News, easyProperty has the largest property platform.
The Sky News report says that easyProperty will have investment from Toscafund, which is investing about £14m in return for a stake of roughly 15%.
Toscafund, run by fund manager and “City Rottweiler” Martin Hughes, is a shareholder in companies including house builder Redrow and home shopping group Findel, where it is at loggerheads with Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley.
The Sky News report says that easyProperty was established “with the backing of Sir Stelios” last year, and that Toscafund could have a second option to invest a further £9m.
In fact, easyProperty is the brainchild of Robert Ellice who has a licensing agreement with the easyJet founder, and is speculated by some to be paying 5% of turnover for the right to use the ‘easy’ brand founded by easyJet’s Sir Stelios Haji-Iaonnou
According to the Sky News report, easyPoperty is claimed to be the largest online property platform in the UK, with over 5,000 sales and rental listings.
In a separate move, online agent eMoov, which has just raised a record crowdfund of £2.6m, yesterday announced two major new hires.
These are Ivan Ramirez, who joins from Groupon, and becomes chief technical officer. He was also an early investor.
Also appointed is Tariq Dag Khan, as chief marketing officer. He has had previous roles with Rated People and Borro.
eMoov founder Russel Quirk said: “It’s no longer about online vs the high street.
“The online estate agency space is now extremely busy compared to when I first started eMoov.
“2015 has been a big year for the online sector with one IPO and another trade sale and there will be more of the same in 2016.
“2015 was a year that I had set out to build firm foundations for the eMoov business.
“You can’t build a house on sand and I am delighted that the appointment of Tariq and Ivan to the exec team, ensures that we are now good to grow in 2016.”
Comments (7)
£250 million is what we’re worth given that we have 250% more listings…
But not sure if we can justify that figure, because unlike EasyProperty, we make profits 🙂
Does anybody want to buy some old rope?
Did anyone else have the ‘Looney Tunes’ theme tune playing in their head as they were reading the headline?
Bubble, bubble toil and trouble. This one must burst soon when people start to realize that their losses will just keep going higher and higher.
It would be interesting to know their success rate on completions/rentals. If a portfolio of 350 available property listings makes them worth 100m I can comfortably retire with my 325 combination of LET, SOLD and available properties………………what a load of purple twits, talking of which I’ve just got my third instruction from them and again, the Vendor had NO accompanied viewings, in fact no viewings at all in 4 months of the best market for 5 years! no feedback/updates/contact of any sort, but not surprising really when you consider the house WAS 75k overpriced. I’m quite enjoying taking a back seat whilst purpleeasynoob shoot themselves in the foot. High Street professionals just need to carry on doing what we do best…………..selling houses for our clients.
It’s no surprise you have taken 3 off these fly be nites!, they list with an upfront fee, they don’t need to sell it as they have no financial incentive.
I’ve taken two off PB again no updates, feedback, viewings etc that is until they appointed a normal run of the mill, dyed in the wool, old hackneyed, old style, last century, out dated, old fashioned, dead beat, undisruptive technology, over priced high street estate agent who managed to service both clients efficiently, affectively and above all professionally.
How is a business that has never generated a profit worth anywhere near £100m ??
If it is based on potential, can I have multi-million pound investment please, because with that, my business also has the potential to go places.
Of all of the businesses in this space most likely to lose you your shirt, its easy.