The industrial actual property brokerage market in South Korea is fragmented, which makes discovering a brand new workplace for tenants a problem as a result of inaccurate itemizing data, excessive brokerage price and sophisticated paperwork. A Seoul-based proptech startup referred to as Rsquare constructed a data-driven platform to digitize the method, enabling tenants to match a number of properties and discover an workplace.
The startup has raised a $72 million (85 billion received) Sequence C spherical from a single backer STIC Investments, JohnWoo Lee, CEO of Rsquare, mentioned in an interview with TechCrunch. The newest funding brings its whole raised to roughly $95 million.
Rsquare will spend the proceeds on advancing its AI-based proptech platform, accelerating its industrial constructing transaction and success facilities brokerage service and growing headcount to 400 workers by subsequent 12 months, Lee mentioned. It has 354 workers as of October.
The Seoul-headquartered firm additionally plans to make additional investments within the proptech sector in South Korea and Southeast Asia, together with Singapore, Vietnam, and Indonesia, Lee mentioned. Rsquare has invested in a Vietnamese proptech startup Propzy in 2020 and an Indonesian proptech firm Mamikos in 2019.
Rsquare, which opened an workplace in Vietnam in June, is about to enter Singapore this month and Indonesia in 2022, Lee added.
Based in 2009, Rsquare launched its workplace brokerage service in 2015 to assist startups discover workplace area and has since expanded its platform to serve small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and bigger firms. In 2016, the corporate arrange a wholly-owned subsidiary, Rsquare Design, to offer workplace inside design companies within the wake of $3.8 million Sequence B funding from Yahoo Japan Capital and SoftBank Ventures Asia.
Lee identified that Rsquare’s key differentiator is its industrial constructing knowledge, together with the workplace landlords’ and tenants’ data, the startup has gathered since its launch. Rsquare claims it has amassed greater than 120,000 industrial constructing knowledge throughout 50 places in South Korea and round 10,000 industrial properties knowledge in Vietnam. Its real-time database gives detailed data and reduces greater than 50% of time and prices in comparison with the standard industrial brokers, based on the corporate. Rsquare has dealt with greater than 10,000 workplace brokerage transactions with over 21,000 shoppers in South Korea.
The pandemic has been laborious on the industrial actual property market globally. Rsquare, which additionally grappled with the pandemic, is being recovered rapidly as many Korean corporations began to reopen their workplaces from the second half of final 12 months, Lee mentioned. The corporate posted income of $55.2 million in 2020 and $85 million for the earlier eight months. Rsquare expects its income to double by the top of 2021, in comparison with final 12 months, as COVID-19 lockdowns ease, based on the corporate.
As for its exit plan, Rsqaure is just not planning to go public quickly; Lee mentioned it will not occur in two years. The corporate has been approached by international strategic buyers for M&A, together with WeWork, about two years in the past, however couldn’t discover any synergy with them on the time, Lee mentioned when requested concerning its M&A chance. Rsquare will concentrate on increasing its enterprise and penetrating additional into abroad markets for the following two years, Lee added.
