Returning investor News Corp invests $70 mn in Elara Technologies

Online real estate brokerage PropTiger’s operator company Elara Technologies has received an investment of about $70 million from returning investor News Corp, according to a source familiar with the development.

The Singapore-headquartered company did not respond to TechCircle’s emails for an official confirmation on the deal at the time of filing this report.

Media conglomerate News Corp made the investment alongside its Australian digital advertising arm REA Group, the source added on Friday.

SoftBank Group, Accel India and SAIF Partners are some of Elara’s other investors, according to VCCEdge data.

Elara will use the funding to expand its business in India.

The capital infusion is in the form of a convertible note that covers the $35 million raised by Elara Technologies as debt from Citi Singapore in August last year, they added.

The development was first reported by news agency Press Trust of India on Thursday.

PropTiger helps real estate developers in selling properties available in the primary market while Makaan.com largely deals in buy-sell of resale properties. 

In 2017, online real estate brokerage PropTiger.com and property listing portal Housing.com had merged in an all-stock deal. The parent holding has been in an expansion spree, ever since.

In 2018, Elara had received a loan of $35 million to boost brand building, product and technology development, sales force and geographic expansion. 

“Our consistent high double-digit growth momentum and mode of financing reflect the strong fundamentals of our company. We expect this funding to catalyse our next phase of growth and build our leadership in the rapidly expanding digital real estate space in India,” group chief executive Dhruv Agarwala had said back then.

In April 2019, it had acquired home rental startup FastFox.com.

The acquisition marked its entry into the online-to-offline (O2O) segment, enabling it to go beyond search and discovery on its existing platforms to add on-ground assistance to both landlords and home-seekers, it had said.

Mosaic Digital, the company that publishes TechCircle, is owned by News Corp.