99 Group operates the leading real estate marketplaces in Indonesia (99.co and rumah123.com) as well as portals in its native Singapore (99.co, iProperty.com.sg and SRX) and is the main competitor to PropertyGuru in those markets.

With this latest funding, 99 Group has raised over $100 million U.S. to date. The company plans to utilize the investment to promote innovation and expand its presence in existing South East Asian markets, as well as explore opportunities to enter new markets in the region.

In July 2022, 99 Group announced that it had raised $52 million U.S. in its Series C funding, after pulling out of merger talks with fellow Southeast Asian marketplace operator Carousell.

The details of the investment were not disclosed but a press release did reveal that Tanncam Director Anthony Galliano will sit on DCG's board subject to approval. Speaking of his firm's investment, Galliano said:

“We believe DCG has demonstrated a unique ability to enter emerging and frontier markets and create a dominant position in their space. We are investing in what we believe is a very promising future, a strong management team, and a successful portfolio ripe for continued growth. DCG is on the precipice of another leg of its incredible journey and we are happy to contribute to this”

Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Australia, DCG operates a number of leading portal sites across emerging markets in Southeast Asia and the Pacific region.

Digital Classifieds Group Portals

According to Group CEO, Matthew Care the company's portfolio is experiencing post-covid growth.

“These are very exciting times for our group as the businesses have regained traction post-Covid and we are experiencing strong and robust growth and substantial improvement in the fundamentals of our portfolio. We welcome Tanncam as a shareholder as they are a sophisticated and well-known established investor. We have no doubts that they will successfully contribute to our future aspirations and strategic objectives.”

Estate.co allows its users to invest in luxury real estate which would normally only be available to ultra-wealthy individuals through a fractional ownership model.

The platform claims to be democratizing an "historically elite only asset class" by dividing luxury real estate assets into shares allowing its investors to part own properties all over the world. Currently, the platform is promoting the fractional ownership of a four-bedroom home in the Hollywood Hills formerly owned by Singer Harry Styles which investors can own a fraction of for as little as $1,000 in return for rental and capital gains.

Estate.co has been launched through Catcha Group, the company founded in 1999 which has invested in the likes of Frontier Digital Ventures, Carsome and Instahome among others. Since January 2021 the company also has a SPAC which is pursuing a deal with a company in the technology, digital media, financial technology, or digital services sectors.

Below: Patrick Grove tells delegates at Property Portal Watch Bangkok 2020 about building a portfolio of leading profitable businesses

• Revenue up 22.7% year-on-year to S$100.7
• New property listings on the group's Vietnamese portal (Batdongsan.com.vn) increased 4.5 times in December compared to August as the country eased lockdown measures
• iProperty.com.my successfully integrated into the group's operations in Malaysia where PropertyGuru Group now enjoys >90% market share

The revenue achieved by PropertyGuru in 2021, in particular, will be encouraging for the company as it prepares for its public debut via a SPAC merger with the Peter Thiel-backed Bridgetown 2 Holdings. The S$100.7m (USD 74.2m) over the period beat company expectations by 3.3%.

Hari V. Krishnan, CEO and Managing Director, PropertyGuru, said: “Despite the uneven recovery from COVID-19 across Southeast Asia, PropertyGuru continued to execute well in 2021 delivering strong financial results. Southeast Asia’s growth is being propelled by the long-term fundamentals of urbanization, digitalization and a rising middle class, and we exited 2021 with good momentum in the real estate sector in our key markets, as COVID restrictions eased.

Although no figures for profit were forthcoming from the company, PropertyGuru expects to return to positive EBITDA in 2022 as it begins to reap the benefits of the REA Group assets integration and investments made in marketing and staff. It also expects revenue growth to accelerate further to 44% with projections of S$145m for the calendar year.

The next big date in the calendar for the company is March 15th when Bridgetown 2 will hold an Extraordinary General Meeting for shareholders to approve the business combination with PropertyGuru and in doing so, take the company public on the NASDAQ.

According to a joint statement, the partnership will see the two companies share inventory, tech know-how and advice with the aim of targeting a potential customer base of 14,000 Indonesian workers in Malaysia and 3,700 Malaysian students in Indonesia.

Founded by Patrick Grove and Eric Tan, who is the company’s CEO, Instahome is a rentals platform along the lines of Spotahome in Europe or QuintoAndar in Brazil. The company operates an end-to-end model and works to cut out fake and misleading listings, enhance images of listing and streamline the entire listing to rented process.

Flokq is one of a growing number of co-living startups in Indonesia that offer curated living experiences in furnished apartments in Jakarta. The company was founded in 2019 by Anand Janardhanan and Harmeet Singh and last year bought out YukStay for an undisclosed sum.

Watch OnlineMarketplaces founder, Simon baker interview Instahome co-founder Patrick Grove as part of Property portal Watch 2020 Bangkok conference...

In March 2021 news emerged that PropertyGuru was looking to go public via a SPAC merger following an aborted IPO in 2019. Nearly a year later the company now finds itself tantalisingly close to a debut on the U.S. public market with the only hurdle left to clear being the formality of a vote of Bridgetown 2 Holdings' shareholders set to be held on the 15th of March.

In a press release announcing the SEC approval, PropertyGuru CEO Hari V. Krishnan provided an update on the company's progress in its key markets.

In the group's home market of Singapore, which is also its main source of revenue, PropertyGuru increased agent subscription prices on average by 15% in November 2021, a feat the company attributes to rising property prices, solid agent and consumer confidence and PropertyGuru's strong market position.

New listings on the company's leading portal in Vietnam (Bantdongsan) in December 2021 were up 450% on August's figures as the local market recovers and the Vietnamese government listed restrictions in Q4.

In Malaysia, following a momentous deal to acquire iProperty from REA Group in May 2021, the two portals are now fully integrated and are "combining [their] resources to increase cross-selling opportunities, bringing together best practices from both teams and improving [their] reach while reducing our marketing spend".

"Thanks to the hard work and dedication of our Gurus, PropertyGuru is well-positioned to continue its growth journey as Southeast Asian economies exit strict Covid measures. Our financial results for the first half of 2021, showing a 17.9% revenue growth at June YTD vs the same period in 2020, demonstrated that our strategy to invest in our digital marketplaces and to expand our products and services into Fintech and data solutions is working." Commented Krishnan.

PropertyGuru holds significant market leadership in many of the Southeast Asian markets it operates real estate portals in and the company has put a great deal of emphasis on expanding its TAM into adjacent fintech products at a time when the tailwinds of increased online penetration and a burgeoning middle class may see tech companies blossom.

However, PropertyGuru may soon face increased competition in Southeast Asia from local rival 99 Group which is reportedly in talks with horizontal classifieds player Carousell over a potential merger.

• Revenue up 2.9% year on year
• Overseas segment revenue up 24% year on year
• Acquisition of the South American chain of real estate portals, Properati from OLX Group

Lifull runs a property portal in Japan (Lifull Homes) with several adjacent businesses including everything from a home moving aggregator to old age nursing care to flower delivery. As well as its domestic operations Lifull also runs the international aggregators Trovit, Mitula, Nuroa and Nestoria (collectively known as Lifull Connect) as well as several property portals across Southeast Asia and Latin America.

Over the three months, the company saw a surge in performance of its 'Overseas' segment whilst its domestic 'Home's' segment remained sluggish due to a lacklustre new developments market in Japan and what the company referred to as "adjustments for changes in the pricing scheme".

Domestically, Lifull continues to pour investment into its domestic portal which it is looking to transform with increased features and products. One of these features highlighted in a company presentation accompanying today's results are 'nice to have' searches which allow portal users a more flexible search and has reportedly led to growth in engagement metrics.

Lifull is also increasing its marketing spend (up 14% year on year) as well as service development (+17%) and recruiting (+13%) costs as it looks to invest in its future.

In terms of the 'Overseas' segment, Lifull announced the acquisition of Properati from OLX at the beginning of the year and is already integrating the 100+ employees into its existing portal operations. Properati reported revenue of $3.6 million for FY20 and is expected to produce synergies with Lifull's existing portals in the region as well as its aggregators Trovit, Mitula and Nuroa which are also strong in Latin America especially as there is only a 6% overlap between paying clients in Lifull's pre-existing portals and Properati.

According to a press release, both Pierre Leung (previously founder and managing director of Fresh Property) and Felix Wittlinger (previously managing director of Piri Property) will join PropertyScout as Sales Directors.

“We are excited to have Pierre and Felix support our rapid growth with new property agencies, property consultants, and co-broker partners joining our platform daily thanks to our strong lead generation and a large database of properties in Bangkok, made possible through our proprietary tech platform. As a result, we have emerged as one of the strongest co-broker partners in Bangkok that maximizes the performance of everyone”, said Mario Peng, CEO, and co-founder of PropertyScout.

“Through our relentless focus on professional service, customer success, and technology innovation, we have become the trusted co-broker partner for many successful agencies.”

The acquisitions come less than a month after the startup announced a Pre-Series A funding round of $2.5 million led by Hustle Fund and with participation from industry figures such as OnlineMarketplaces' own Simon Baker, former Scout24 CEO Marc Stilke and Divvy Homes founder Brian Ma.

Founded in 2019 by Mario Peng, Salita Kamnerdsiri and former Scout24 VP of Strategy Marco Barth, PropertyScout is effectively an end-to-end concierge service for consumers looking to rent or buy in Thailand, similar to Nomad Homes in The UAE. PropertyScout claims to have seen 15x growth since Q1 of 2021 and is sanguine about its prospects for 2022 and beyond.

The company employs around 50 of its own agents and works with some 300 partner agents and is free for users but charges landlords a commission for finding the best tenants.

Read our interview with PropertyScout CEO Mario Peng from 2021 here.

Local business publication The Business Times is quoting multiple people aware of the development as saying that Singaporean horizontal marketplace operator Carousell is in talks with portal operator 99 Group over a potential takeover. The sources quoted stressed that nothing has been agreed yet and that talks may not result in any deal.

While Carousell operates a leading B2C and C2C marketplace for goods and services including cars and jobs, 99 Group operates the second-largest real estate portal in the country by traffic as well as the leading portal in Indonesia.

99 Group is a direct rival of PropertyGuru and recently lost out on the backing of Australian portal operator REA Group when REA merged its Southeast Asian assets with those of PropertyGuru back in May 2021. As part of that deal, REA Group agreed to divest from its interest in 99 Group which it had been an investor in since 2019.

Whether 99 Group would want to enter into a deal that would see another public company as its overseer or benefactor is up for debate given that CEO Darius Cheung is on record as saying that REA's departure as an investor “allows us to free from the shackles of having our most significant shareholder being a public company”.

With its main rival, PropertyGuru about to go public and receive unprecedented ammunition to go after M&As and synch much of the market in Southeast Asia, 99 Group may well welcome interest from regional investors and maybe even some from further afield.

Founded in 2019 by Mario Peng, Salita Kamnerdsiri and former Scout24 VP of Strategy Marco Barth, PropertyScout is effectively an end-to-end concierge service for consumers looking to rent or buy in Thailand, similar to Nomad Homes in The UAE. PropertyScout claims to have seen 15x growth since Q1 of 2021 and is sanguine about its prospects for 2022 and beyond.

The company employs around 50 of its own agents and works with some 300 partner agents and is free for users, instead charging landlords a commission for finding the best tenants.

Participating in PropertyScout's latest round were existing investors such as OnlineMarketplaces' own Simon Baker, former Scout24 CEO Marc Stilke and Divvy Homes founder Brian Ma as well as institutional investors AngelCentral, Swiss Founders Fund and Asymmetry VC. The round was led by California-based Southeast Asian specialist VC firm Hustle Fund.

Exciting times lie ahead for PropertyScout according to CEO Mario Peng, who suggested that 2022 could see the PropTech startup extend operations beyond Thailand's borders.

“We plan to use the funding to further enhance our proprietary technology platform and expand into property sales. Once the platform and processes are optimized and validated in Thailand, we will scale quickly into other Southeast Asian markets,”

Read our interview with PropertyScout co-founder and CEO, Mario Peng from May 2021 here.