The worldwide proptech sector has reached a significant milestone this month as KE Holdings from China, also called Beike Zhaofang, the owner of leading property brokerage player Lianjia, was listed on the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange), raising a whopping $2.12 billion (US).
Details on Lianjia Beike IPO and the success of this pioneering housing company
The company’s ADS (American Depository Shares) went up considerably on the day of the listing, taking its valuation to a whopping $45 billion. This made Beike (Lianjia) the world’s most valued property-related company and the 7th biggest internet company in China. The real estate brokerage was founded in the year 2001 in Beijing and offers offline and online real estate brokerage services and transactions.
Lianjia Shanghai and other regions covered in excess of 2.2 million housing transactions for 2019 with values touching $300 billion (US) while generating US$6.5 billion in revenues. It has Softbank, Sequoia Capital, Hillhouse Capital and Tencent amongst its biggest investors. Not many know that Lianjia Guangzhou, Lianjia Chengdu, Lianjia Shenzhen, Lianjia Shanghai and Lianjia Hangzhou form the core of the Lianjia business model that has greatly inspired an Indian parallel to the company, Square Yards.
Founded in 2014, Square Yards has now emerged as Indian real estate’s foremost player with annual GTV (gross transaction value) of US $1.2 billion, bigger than most realty developers in India as well. Founder Tanuj Shori was inspired greatly by Lianjia during frequent trips to China.
Square Yards and its parallel success story
Each time Shori invested money in real estate in India, he realized how the process and business model was crying out for a transformation, the country having an unorganized $100 billion market with the biggest developer at less than 1% of market share. Both Square Yards and Lianjia were born with a common and larger mission to revolutionize the broken distribution systems for real estate in their countries. Square Yards is only 6 years old as compared to the 20-year old Lianjia and is perhaps the sole full-stack ecosystem play in Indian real estate.
Square Yards has an integrated ecosystem comprising of the following:
- Intelligent Search & Discovery.
- 2 million+ property seekers, 75,000+ digital enquiries and 1500+ mortgage and property transactions each month.
- Online booking engine, 3D views, secured online payment gateways, digital signatures, online registration and escrow services.
- 3,000+ sales force, mobile apps, 3D walkthroughs, collaterals, proprietary transactional tools.
- Square Connect (mobile platform for brokers), influencing lives of 150,000+ individual brokers throughout India.
- Square Capital (collaborates with leading Indian banks for offering digital mortgages, paperless home loan sanctions, linked to credit bureaus and loan origination systems at banks).
- Azuro acquired in 2020, covers property management and rentals. Exclusive partnerships signed for execution and management of 5,000+ apartments.
- Enterprise SaaS through EDGE, offering access to proprietary tools and automated workflows for enterprises. EDGE has 1,000+ user licenses.
Square Yards has a long journey ahead but is taking the right strides in terms of adopting technology, focusing on consumers, vertical integration and overall approach towards the market. Square Yards’ success can be attributed to its core competency of tackling fundamental issues pertaining to the way we derive value from and experience real estate in India.
For a detailed report on this read the articles we were featured in:
The Economic Times – https://bit.ly/3hRbgvf
Published Date: 28 August 2020
