99.co raises $7.9m as Singapore’s online property battle heats up

High-rises in Singapore. Photo credit: guiselaine / 123RF.

Singapore property portal 99.co has raised US$7.9 million in fresh funding, it announced today. The round, dubbed “series A-plus” by the startup, was co-led by Sequoia India and Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, both existing investors and members of its board. Existing investors East Ventures and 500 Startups also joined in.

(Disclosure: East Ventures and Eduardo Saverin are also investors in Tech in Asia. See our ethics page for details.)

The startup previously raised US$1.6 million in January 2015 at a US$8 million valuation. The valuation for this funding round was not disclosed.

99.co will seek to expand into two more Southeast Asian markets.

99.co offers residential property listings for sale or rent. Agents can list their properties on the website and homeseekers can browse houses, compare prices, and book viewing appointments.

It’s currently active in Singapore and Indonesia, where it operates in Jakarta and Surabaya. In those cities, it offers additional services including data analytics and tools for real-estate developers, trying to cover more facets of property discovery.

99.co will use the funding mostly to build its business in these two countries, as there’s still “lots of room to grow,” according to CEO Darius Cheung. “We’ve barely touched maybe 5 percent of the market’s potential,” he tells journalists at a roundtable interview. The plan is to be in eight cities in Indonesia by the end of the year.

The company will also seek to expand into two more Southeast Asian markets but hasn’t locked them in yet. Candidates include “the usual suspects,” as Darius puts it, like Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines. “There are lots of market dynamics with real-estate agencies and developers that we’re trying to understand,” he explains.

Another part of the funding will go into hiring, technology, and research and development. The company is looking to hire around 30 people, split between technical staff and senior management positions like CFO and an HR executive. Like many other startups in Singapore, 99.co has been affected by the talent crunch, having to compete with larger local companies like Grab and international giants like Google and Facebook for quality hires.

This round should also pave the way for the startup’s series B, for which it’s courting new investors to close a deal within the year.

Co-founder and CEO Darius Cheung. Photo credit: 99.co.

Here come the new challengers

As more of Singapore’s property listings and agents migrate online, startups move in to address the demand. Traffic-wise, according to SimilarWeb, PropertyGuru leads the market. Besides property listings, the company offers relevant online media content and experiments with apartment and house viewings in virtual reality.