Michael and Kenny Bruce of Purplebricks have sold $44 million worth of shares in the company to Axel Springer.
The brothers, who founded the fixed-fee agency in 2014 and floated it on the London Stock Exchange the following year at 100 pence a share, sold down their stakes last week at 360 pence a share.
Another Purplebricks director, William Whitehorn, former director of corporate affairs at Richard Branson's Virgin Group, sold 225,000 Purplebricks shares to Axel Springer, which bedded down a 11.5 per cent stake in the fixed-fee agents for £125 million ($228 million).
The investment by the publisher of daily newspapers Die Welt and Bild included buying £25 million in existing shares and a £100 million subscription to 27.8 million new Purplebricks shares.
The German publishing house announced its plans to invest in Purplebricks last month, with the company's head of classifieds Andreas Wiele saying its minority stake would give it the "opportunity to participate in an innovative, fast-growing business model in new markets".
Since it was founded in 2014, Purplebricks has sold over £10 billion of real estate in the UK and claims to sell a home every nine minutes.
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