CommonFloor raises $30M in Series E round from existing investor Tiger Global

Bangalore-based maxHeap Technologies Pvt Ltd, which owns real estate and apartment management portal CommonFloor.com, has secured $30 million (Rs 181 crore) in Series E round of funding from existing investor Tiger Global Management.

"This investment will support the team's vision to think out of the box, innovate and lead the online real-estate sector in its journey to further enhance user experience. We have more than doubled our revenues and traffic and the funding will further accelerate our growth plans," said Sumit Jain, co- founder and CEO of CommonFloor.

"This round of funding will be used to invest further in our product and technology that will enhance customer experience. The company will continue to strategically scale up its marketing and operations across the 18 cities where it's currently present and expand to 22 new markets in India," he added.

Early this year, CommonFloor had raises Rs 64 crore ($10.4 million) in Series D round of funding from Tiger Global and Accel Partners.

Founded in 2007 by Jain (CEO) and Lalit Mangal (both have degrees in Computer Science from IIT Roorkee), along with Vikas Malpani, a Computer Science graduate from Visvesvaraya Technological University in Belgaum, Karnataka, CommonFloor combines property search, apartment management and vendor management. It also facilitates interactions within an apartment community (on the 'common floor' platform) and connects people to relevant service providers.

The portal is free for end-users but the firm charges businesses for listing, marketing and advertising on its site. The firm claims that more than 2,00,000 users visiting the portal every day and it has witnessed a 100 per cent increase in traffic, 125 per cent jump in live listings and added over 25,000 communities in the last two quarters. The website gets more than 25 per cent traffic on its site via mobile app.

CommonFloor also claims it has more than one lakh projects listed on its portal. It also currently has over 4 lakh active listings. The company has a team of more than 900 employees.

CommonFloor has also expanded its geographic footprint with new offices in 11 cities – Jaipur, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Nagpur, Indore, Ahmedabad, Kochi, Coimbatore, Mysore, Kolkata and Mangalore.

In July last year, the company had raised $7.5 million in Series C round from the same investors. In October 2012, it had raised an undisclosed amount in Series B from the same investors. It had raised Series A funding from Accel Partners around four years ago.

"India's online real estate sector has been expanding rapidly as internet access grows, especially through mobile. CommonFloor.com has carefully mapped the needs of the online-based real estate ecosystem and has forged a clear path toward future growth. We are pleased to continue to partner with them," said Lee Fixel, partner at Tiger Global.

CommonFloor competes with new-generation online real estate listing ventures such as PropTiger and Housing.com besides legacy players IndiaProperty, 99acres, Magicbricks and Makaan.com. With the latest transaction, it has raised over $50 million to date, making it the most funded among the new property listing startups.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)