PropertyGuru gets USD48M in funding from Europe property group ImmobilienScout24

PropertyGuru, a Singapore-based property portal group, and one of Asia’s largest, has secured an approximately SGD 60M (USD 48M) investment in Singapore dollars from ImmobilienScout24, a leading property portal group in Europe.

According to the press release, this is one of the biggest online deals in Asia this year. The deal gives the European company a minority stake in PropertyGuru.

The funding will be used to continue innovating and developing services to help its clients find and advertise properties, as well as support further expansion within the region. 

PropertyGuru will also gain access to their European investor’s talent and expert resources.

So far, the Singapore company has a presence in nine countries. It announced last month that revenue and Internet users have more than doubled within a year, from 2011. It has reached 8.2 million visitors viewing 65 million property pages in April 2012, compared to 3.6 million visitors in the same month last year.

The company employs 240 people across six offices in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.

(Read: Interview with CEO Steve Melhuish on how PropertyGuru conquered foreign markets)

ImmobilienScout24 claims to be Germany’s biggest real estate marketplace, receiving 7.5 million unique visitors and offering more than 1.5 million different properties each month. Based in Berlin, it employs over 500 people and is part of the Scout24 Group, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, a US$73.7 billion turnover company with 236,000 employees in over 50 countries.

“The Asian region is a dynamic growth market and therefore of significant strategic importance to Scout24 Group. We are pleased to have found a partner in PropertyGuru Group with a strong super-regional position. Together, we will be able to develop the Asian market,” said Dr. Martin Enderle, CEO at Scout24 Group.

Steve Mulhuish, CEO and co-founder of PropertyGuru, added: “We see strong economic growth, rising middle classes, urbanisation, developing property markets, as well as an online explosion, taking place throughout Asia. PropertyGuru sits in middle of all of this.”

In May 2011, PropertyGuru had received S$5M in funding (US$4M), which was on top of the series A investment they received in 2008.