PropertyGuru To Ramp Up Fintech Services As Singapore Unicorn Prepares For SPAC Merger
Forbes
By Jonathan Burgos
15 September 2021
PropertyGuruthe biggest online
real estate marketplace in Southeast Asiaaims to ramp up fintech services to tap rising demand for property across the region.
We plan to
continue to innovate and grow, Steve Melhuish, cofounder of PropertyGuru, said in a recent virtual interview with Forbes Asia.
The Singapore-based
unicorn will focus on growing the company beyond its core property listings business and rolling out ancillary services such as mortgage and home insurance broking, and data analytics, says Melhuish.
PropertyGuru unveiled its fintech plans in July after announcing a merger with Nasdaq-listed Bridgetown 2 Holdings, a blank-check company controlled by
billionaires Richard Li and Peter Thiel. The transactionwhich values the combined entity at $1.8 billionis on track to be completed by year-end or the first quarter of 2022, Melhuish says. The
company will raise gross proceeds of $431 million as part of the deal, providing sufficient capital to pursue both organic and inorganic growth, he says.
Theres a huge opportunity across the region, with the company estimating the total addressable market in Southeast Asia at $8.1 billion.
PropertyGuru expects its revenue to climb to $222.6 million by 2025 from $61.9 million in 2020, bolstered by its core property listings and fintech business.
We see big opportunities in fintech, Melhuish says. We have 37 million property seekers using our services every single month. They are
looking to buy property and require financing and finance-related services.
The fintech service is starting to gain traction in Singapore, its
biggest market. PropertyGuru launched a mortgage broking product in the city-state at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and over S$1 billion ($745 million) in loans in the past 12 months, CEO Hari
Krishnan told Forbes Asia.
Our ability to do a billion dollars of home loans during Covid is something we are very pleased with, says
Krishnan, who was appointed CEO in 2016 after Melhuish stepped down after nearly a decade at the helm. Were just scratching the surface. We want to do a lot more when it comes to digitizing loan origination.
Singapore accounted for 57% of the companys revenue in 2020, according to PropertyGuru. Demand for housing in the city-state is heating up amid
expectations the Singapore economy will gradually recover as the government eases pandemic-induced restrictions now that over 80% of the population has been fully vaccinated. Total private home sales in the Lion City climbed to 16,549 units in the
first half, a 139% jump from the previous year, government data showed.
Melhuish founded the company in 2007 after the condo he was renting near
Singapores Orchard Road shopping belt was put up for sale the year before, leaving him scrambling to find a new home and poring over newspaper classified ads because there were no online property listings back then. It was a hugely
frustrating process, he recalls. That led him to explore the opportunity of launching an online real estate marketplace.
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