The residential real estate home listing portal for emerging markets, MIPARO, has recently announced a FundedByMe - a major European-based firm - crowdfunding effort starting in late May of 2018. The funding round will last six weeks and the company hopes to at least $300,000 to $500,000 in capital, and invites even small investors to commit as little as $145.
This will be MIPARO’s third funding round. Initially in 2016, the company received seed-round funding of $400,000 from West Island Invest AB. This was followed by an investment in January, 2018 by the Swedish-based early-stage VC Company Milky Way Cap, which bought a 2% equity stake. Concurrent with the crowdfunding effort, MIPARO remains in talks with a number of private placement investors.
PropTech Today’s “Hottest” VC Startup Category
Real estate a.k.a. PropTech is one of the “hottest” early stage investment categories, according to Forbes Magazine, a leading U.S. business publication. In 2016, over $2.6 billion was invested into real estate tech startups through 235 deals worldwide. Investments in the category were even higher in 2017. One of the main reasons investor interest is so high is that PropTech is one of the last major categories not dramatically impacted by the technology revolution. This, and the chance of seeing robust returns, is driving investor interest.
Until now, only large VC funds, wealthy individual investors or private equity firms had the means to invest in this category. FundedByMe crowdfunding campaign allows small, individual investors the opportunity to reap the benefits in PropTech. Mikael Westoo, founder and CEO of MIPARO noted, “Finally, anyone can invest in real estate tech. It’s no longer the sole domain people with deep pockets. And our emerging market strategy appears to be working.”
Emerging Markets Offer Promising ROI
The online property listing portal category is undeveloped in emerging markets. Today, most of these countries have dozens of listing portals and broker platforms, making home search difficult. Few platforms showcase an area’s entire inventory as is the case in the U.S. and Europe.
When online listing platforms first appeared in the U.S. and Europe, they too had a cluttered listing portal environment. Now, however, one or two portals dominate the market. Most analysts believe this will occur in emerging markets as their markets mature.
According to Westoo, “Our objective is to be the dominate player in the markets where we operate. We plan on being one of survivors when the market eventually shakes out as it did in the U.S. and Europe. This fund raising campaign will help us achieve that.”
SOURCE MIPARO
Edited by K. Fanning
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