Housing.com, the SoftBank-backed real estate platform in India, recently let go of its controversial CEO. Today it’s back in the news for more positive reasons, after it announced a $2 million acquisition that gives it new software chops for serving real estate professionals.
The company has picked up HomeBuy360, a Bangalore-based startup that provides an online sales and customer relations management platform that connects developers, agents and buyers. The four-year-old company claimed more than 70 developers across seven cities in India.
Housing.com, which claims to be the only real estate platform that owns its own CRM software, plans to extend the service so it can reach the 20,000 real estate developers that it said use its platform across India. It added that the software will be channeled into its data science lab, where it will complement the firm’s existing data and analytics on the real estate industry.
“Developers are key stakeholders to drive efficiency in the Indian real estate sector. Our vision is that every developer uses HB360 to bring down their sales and operating costs,” said Rishabh Gupta, Housing.com’s COO and interim CEO, said in a statement.
It’s been a rollercoaster past nine months or so for Housing.com. The company was one of an initial batch of tech companies in India to land investment from Japanese telecom giant software SoftBank, which last year pledged to invest billions in India, which really put it on the map. However, ongoing drama with co-founder and former CEO Rahul Yadav brought negative attention and headlines galore. Like Marmite, Yadav polarized opinion with his style, which included public spats with investors, other CEOs, and a plan to give his entire shareholding to Housing.com’s staff.
Housing.com is still seeking a full-time replacement, but it looks like business as usual for the firm in the post-Yadav era. Today’s deal is the company’s third acquisition this year.