How Proptech Industry is Coping up with the Changing Business Environment

Property technology (Proptech) has recently entered India and has remarkably grown in a short period. The proptech industry has primarily sped up by turning into digital marketplaces for carrying out realty business and in turn, increasing market reach, as well as slashing down intermediaries and transaction expenses. Initially, fewer players invaded in this sector but with the passing time, more players set foot in the niche remoulding model of the online realty business to offer different services. 

Presently, Livspace, MagicBricks, Cowrks, Square Yards, 99acres--are some of the proptech companies working in the sector. As new companies are adding in the proptech sphere, competition becomes stiffer as customers are, in turn, receiving varied options to choose from. To keep one’s hold in the market, companies are now walking shoulder to shoulder with other organisations and in turn, offering diverse services to the customers. Similarly, the Bengaluru-based proptech company, YourOwnROOM has partnered with Bounce and Yulu. With this association, the proptech startup aims to solve the last mile connectivity and urban mobility challenges for their millennial tenants.  

Under this partnership, the startup will set up Bounce and Yulu bikes in its flagship co-living property, YOR Circle One that is a 200-bed multi-facility property in Electronic City, Bangalore. The co-living space is in the vicinity of Siemens, Narayana Health City, Biocon, Infosys, Wipro, and several colleges such as IIT and Symbiosis. Tenants can rent out these two-wheeler vehicles to drive to their workplaces, malls, supermarkets or city hubs. 

“We always look at our business from our tenant’s point of view and strongly believe that integrating last mile connectivity with our rental solution can be a very attractive proposition for our tenants which will increase their satisfaction and stickiness with us. We are keen to expand this partnership to other properties across Bangalore and Pune,” Prabhat Kumar Tiwary said in an interview with BusinessEx.

Customer Sharing-- a Way to Climb Stairs to Success Together 

YourOwnRoom is ethically addressing tenants’ problems by providing Bounce and Yulu-run bikes at its co-living property. Bounce and Yulu are prominent mobility firms rendering individual transport options to travel from their homes to offices and schools to other places. Owing to customer’s enhanced reliance on mobility electric bikes and bicycles, the cited companies have become an equivalent substitute of metros and buses in the surrounding regions. They have initiated an efficient and smooth way of renting out electronic bikes through a mobile application.  

“Bounce and Yulu have worked wonders to introduce handy and environment-friendly options in last-mile mobility to make Urban Mobility Seamless, Shareable and Sustainable which is the need of Urban India. This seamless adds to our core shared rental solutions and helps create an efficient residential real estate landscape and to decongest cities," Sachin Joshi, Co-Founder, and Chief Technology and Sales Officer of YourOwnROOM, said in an interview with BusinessEx.

 YourOwnROOM presently works in ten micro-markets in Pune and fifteen micro-markets in Bengaluru. It says that its clientele to reside in their workplaces to avert the traffic problems. The proptech company manages 2,000 beds throughout Pune and Bangalore.

Progressing Proptech Industry in India 

In recent times, the economy is swiftly adopting digital technology and amalgamating business concepts with it. This association led to the emergence of various new business concepts besides proptech. According to KPMG’s report, “the PropTech market is expanding at a reasonably fast pace, evidenced by heightened investment activity in the sector. PropTech companies raised $ 7.8 billion investment between 2013 and 2017, comprising 179 PropTech startups. Over 60 per cent of these PropTech companies are located in the Asia Pacific region. As the demand for property tech innovative solutions rises, $3 billion is expected to be invested globally in 2019 for the growth of PropTech companies.” 

The report also states, “M&A activity in the sector has also seen a significant increase in the last few years. Global VC investment into PropTech has been on a steady rise since 2015 though now consolidation trends are also emerging. Investors are looking at PropTech as the silver lining expected to drive the future growth in the real estate industry.”

Other Deals in Proptech Sector

The rise of the PropTech industry is evident from the number of ignoramus deals that have happened in this sector so far. 

In September last year, The American realty business, Jones Lang LaSalle Inc’s VC arm, JLL Spark has lately infused in Gurugram-based workspace aggregator, Qdesq. The capital infusion is counted as JLL Spark’s foremost investment in the Indian enterprise, reported VC Circle. 

In June last year, the American private equity (PE) firm, General Atlantic pumped money in the Indian Property listings business, NoBroker.com’s INR 354 crore funding round. Besides the US-based PE firm, Beenext and SAIF Partners took part in the funding round of the cited property listing portal, according to the cited media report.