Weekly News Round Up | 12-Apr-2021 | Real Estate & PropTech
Good morning folks - And hope you had a fantastic weekend!
If you’re reading this while drinking coffee - Cheers! Coz I was drinking coffee when writing this :D
Below is a quick gist of the big stories of PropTech and Real Estate from around the globe over the past week. Hope you like it!
Mergers and Acquisitions:
Redfin completes acquisition of RentPath for $608M
RentPath owns Apartment Guide, Rent.com, Rentals.com and other assets. This acquisition gives a boost to Redfins ambitions in the rental real estate industry. Glen Kelman, CEO of Redin, said the listings from RentPath’s portals will get integrated to their own website by 2022.
For those who remember, RentPath had a failed takeover bid by CoStar Group last year, so they would be happy this one completed as expected!
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Funding/IPOs and SPACs:
Sonder mulls SPAC route to going public
The company leases apartments, furnishes them and converts them into short and mid term rental units. It uses both it’s own website as well as platforms like Airbnb to get bookings. The company has raised over $500M in financing till date (Including $170M during the pandemic).
Better.com raises $500M from Softbank
Better is a digital lender which home buyers and owners can use to finance or refinance their property. The fully digitized process cuts out unnecessary middle-man fees, and makes the process seamless for the user (Or so is the claim by the company). The company is expected to list it’s shares on the public markets later this year.
For Softbank, real estate focussed companies continues to be an area of very strong interest and their bets include Oyo, Compass and WeWork amongst others.
Swyft raised $17.5M to help retailers fight Amazon
Retail real estate took a strong beating during the pandemic, and Swyft is hoping to help independent retailers offer same day delivery (like Amazon) by connecting them to a network of on-demand logistics providers. They claim their company is a marketplace + software (For the logistics companies) and helps streamline end to end delivery.
Cool idea IMO. Although it’s not front and center Real Estate/PropTech, I added it here as it affects retail real estate!
Other Industry News and Articles:
Compass IPO - Who made the big bucks?
Ever wondered who actually makes money during a $7B PropTech IPO? This article by The Real Deal gives a good break down! Star investors, Founders and C-Suite Executives at Compass all had their share of the spoils :) It’s a good article to read!
Overall, it was a pretty quiet week by recent standards - Makes my job a lot easier :)
What would you like to read on ReXT? Any particular articles or themes? Would love your inputs! Just drop a reply and we’ll talk!