Spain-headquartered property transaction tool provider Clikalia has received $518m from investors including Mouro Capital, the venture capital firm formed and sponsored by financial services firm Santander, representing one of the largest funding rounds in Spain, Expansión reported yesterday.
Real estate technology-focused VC firm Fifth Wall led the equity portion sized at roughly $70m, and was joined by hedge fund Luxor Capital. The round included almost $450m in debt supplied by Deutsche Bank, surpassing Spain-based delivery service Glovo’s $529m series F in April this year.
Founded in 2017 as Clicpiso, Clikalia has built an online platform designed to simplify the property transaction process, claiming customers can sell their houses within seven days. It has more than 600 employees and operates in its home country and Mexico.
The company will use the funding to further expand its presence in Mexico and the rest of Europe, starting with a launch in Portugal early next year. It will also increase the headcount of its team, whose executives are 70% female.
Company co-founder Alister Moreno told Expansión: “Our goal is to create a real estate ecosystem that reinvents the way homes are bought and sold by focusing on the needs of the customer.
“Our latest round, which includes both existing and new investors with deep industry knowledge, such as Fifth Wall and Luxor, reinforces our commitment to disrupting the market by leveraging a digital platform that simplifies the home transaction process for consumers while providing additional value-added services.” (Translated from Spanish by Global Corporate Venturing)
Mouro Capital (formerly Santander Innoventures) had already invested an undisclosed sum – later revealed to be about $14m in equity funding by TechCrunch – in Clikalia for its series A funding in November 2020.
Expansión named multiple private investors – Sergio Furio, Iñaki Berenguer, Guillaume Poussaz, Luis Sanz, Frank D’Souza y Rajeev Mehtaand, Gina Díez Barroso, Iker Casillas and Rafa Nadal – among Clikalia’s previous backers.
Opendoor, a US-based peer of Clikalia backed by corporates Lennar, SoftBank, Access Industries and Alphabet that agreed to a reverse merger deal in September 2020, is a Fifth Wall investee. The firm had also backed another company that provides similar services: Brazil-based unicorn Loft.
Luxor, on the other hand, has artificial intelligence and video-equipped property brokerage Offerpad among its portfolio companies. These property technology developers with instant buyer (iBuyer) scheme popularised in the United States is increasingly being accepted by Europe-based consumers.
Last month, Clikalia paid €50m ($57m) for a 51% stake in local property management group Inmho, which manages about 250,000 residential units and has more than 40 offices throughout the country with over 300 employees.
“When you buy a home from us, you have all costs in the embedded price,” Clikalia’s Moreno said in an interview with TechCrunch.
“If you buy an old home, get a mortgage for an old home and then hire a contractor and architect for a renovation, that will cost you four times more than it costs us. And you have to get a consumer loan to finance the renovation. With Clikalia, it is just one mortgage and you are ready to go.”
– Image courtesy of Clikalia.
