Online property brokerage company Indiahomes plans to raise $15 million through an international private equity (PE) investor in its second round of fundraising to meet capital requirements till 2015. This will be followed by an IPO in the second quarter of the 2014-15 fiscal to fund additional requirements and to provide an exit option for its PE investors. The company has already received $17 million through its international PE partners Helion Venture Capital and Foundation Capital.

Indiahomes offers a range of property-related services including buying, selling, renting, documenting, financing and legal aid for residential and commercial properties through its tie-ups with 250 developers. Avendus Capital will be its merchant banker for the fundraising.

The firm’s revenue model is sales volume-based commission from developers, while services to customers are free. Currently operating in Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida, Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata, Indiahomes plans to expand to Pune, Chennai and Ahmedabad this calendar year and hopes to achieve 20 per cent of its revenues in 2013-14 from these three cities.

According to Founder and Managing Director Samarjit Singh, “We are targeting a net commission income of Rs 550 crore in the next 2-3 years from the present Rs 100 crore. We are looking at a gross merchandise volume of Rs 25,000 to Rs 26,000 crore per year by 2015 to eventually hit a topline growth of 300 per cent in two years.”

“Our three-pronged strategy to achieve this would be geographical expansion in newly emerging internet-savvy markets, organic growth and a new bundled home loan offering which would be rolled off by this March. Under this bundled offering, we will be the front-enders for our banking partners in facilitating loans for buyers booking homes through our portal,” added Singh.

HDFC, ICICI and SBI are the three banks shortlisted to offer this bundled facility.

Interestingly, in a year that the realty industry was hit by dwindling sales volumes because of high construction and interest costs and slowing demand, Singh claims the company’s strategy of focussing on the primary and mid markets has helped it remain unaffected.

“We are focussed on building homes for emerging India. Catering to the young, informed, middle class India is where growth lies. We will continue to focus on the primary home market of new houses being delivered by builders in the mid market segment to drive growth.”

>manisha.jha@thehindu.co.in

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