Singaporean real estate startup raises $1m to help you rent a new place

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A new property portal promises to help you find your dream abode in Singapore, and it has just announced a US$1.1 million seed round. Greyloft wants to simplify the experience of finding a home to rent online. It bills itself as a licensed real estate agency that uses technology to achieve that goal.

The round was led by DSG Consumer Partners and Wavemaker Partners. It was joined by Cub Capital, Tigris Capital, and JFDI. Greyloft is a graduate of JFDI’s 2014A cohort.

The startup combines software tools with its own in-house real estate agents who help home seekers with things like paperwork, moving in minutiae, and support after the customer moves into the new property.

For now, it only works with rentals but plans to move to property sales soon.

End-to-end service

As a real estate agency, Greyloft feels that online property discovery websites like PropertyGuru and 99.co complement its business, according to co-founder and CEO Siddhesh Narayanan.

Additionally, the company is building software to provide customers with as much information about properties they’re interested in, to help them make their decision.

Greyloft combines software tools with its own in-house real estate agents.

“A lot of the data that our customers need is already out there. However, it’s hard to make sense of it all, and they tend to refer to unreliable sources for information. We are building a team of data scientists and researchers to develop technology that will help cut through this clutter and present them with relevant information and data,” says Archit Agarwal, Greyloft co-founder & CTO.

The two co-founders met while studying at the National University of Singapore and spent a few years working in banking. They decided to start their own technology company after observing that real estate was largely stuck offline when it came to the deal after the search and discovery part.

Building up

Greyloft will put the funding toward product development, building “data-driven online research tools” for customers and tools that make the offline segment of its business easier for both users and its own agents. This includes viewing, scheduling, deal negotiation, contract execution, and post-deal follow-ups.

It will also build up its product team and agent staff, and boost its signal through various marketing efforts.

The company monetizes by charging a commission on successful transactions. Siddhesh doesn’t provide specific numbers, but tells Tech in Asia that Greyloft’s revenue has grown 18 percent month-on-month since January 2016.

Converted from Singapore dollars. US$1 = S$1.36