Property advisory platform Pin Click raises pre-Series A funding

Bangalore-based professional services and investment management firm Pin Click, which focuses on real estate, has raised an undisclosed amount in pre-series A round of funding.

Pin Click, previously known as Ft2acres, will use the funds for re-branding, scaling up operations, adding new verticals and strengthening technology, co-founder Manik Kinra told Techcircle.in..

The startup, run by Feet2Acres Property Consultants Pvt Ltd, which had raised seed funding in 2013, said the total amount of funding raised till now is close to $1 million.

Founded in 2013 by Puneet Kinra, Manik Kinra, Shivani Gupta, Abhijit Bhole and Shaishav Kumar, Pin Click is more than just a property listing platform. It offers technology-powered property advisory services to home buyers. Currently, the startup works with real-estate developers in Bangalore and Pune and has a team of around 100 advisors.

Manik Kinra had earlier co-founded crowdsourcing driven marketing support agency Jade Magnet while Kinra previously worked as Group CEO at Balaji Telefilms Ltd. Gupta, an IIM-Bangalore alumnus, has worked with Boston Consulting and Thomas Cook India; both Bhole and Kumar, who are IIT-Bombay alumni, worked at Microsoft Research.

In January, the startup added two new verticals to its product portfolio, including single rental management service and multi-family tenancy management/ shared accommodation service. Both the services are on the rental side. According to Manik Kinra, in both the new categories the company has finalised deals on nearly 50 homes so far in Bangalore.

On the property advisory side Pin Click claims to have around 500 customers in Bangalore and Pune. The company said it will also set up its base in cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai in THE next six months.

Explaining Pin Click's business model, Kinra added, "We charge 2 per cent commission from real estate developers for every property sold, and the average price of property is Rs 60-70 lakh in Bangalore and Pune. And, on the rental side, the company charges one month's rent from property owners and it is brokerage-free for end-consumers."

On property advisory side of business, Pin Click competes with Indiahomes, PropTiger, and Square Yards; whereas in the rental space the company sees Nestaway and Zenify as its competition.

The Indian online realty market is dominated by Info Edge's 99acres and Times group-owned MagicBricks. PropTiger, CommonFloor (acquired by Quikr), Housing.com and IndiaProperty are among the other major players. Most recently, Bangalore-based Nestaway received funding from Tata Sons' chairman emeritus Ratan Tata.

Last year, Square Yards made three acquisitions, including Ahmedabad-based design and animation studio Oryden TechLabs; Singapore-based LUXE Real Estate; and merged real estate research portal Realizing.in with itself. The company had raised $6 million (Rs 32 crore) in a pre-Series A round of funding from a clutch of unnamed investors in May last year.

Zenify, last year, received funding from Gana Yantrika Systems led by Anant Pandit as part of the angel investment round.

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