Strata Property Management Pvt. Ltd, a real-estate investment tech startup, has raised $1.5 million (Rs 11 crore) in its seed round of funding led by SAIF Partners and Mayfield India.
Real estate data analytics platform PropStack and three other angel investors with commercial real estate backgrounds have also participated in the round, Strata said in a statement.
The Bengaluru-based company said it will use the funds to upgrade its technology and expand its team across its cities to over 45 members this year.
Strata was founded in May last year by Priyanka Rathore and Sudarshan Lodha. Rathore was a lead real estate analyst at WeWork prior to starting the startup while Lodha was a partner at law firm YSS Legal, according to their LinkedIn profiles.
The startup's platform allows investors to own and sell fractions of pre-leased, Grade-A commercial properties such as office spaces and warehouses. It currently has 1,500 users and 150 active investors on the platform.
Lodha said the startup is focused on bringing in transparency and a data-driven approach to investments in real estate. The company aims to touch Rs 250 crores of assets under management (AUM) in this year, he added.
Subeer Monga, principal at Mayfield India, said that with Strata, individual investors can now access real estate investing without needing to invest large sums of money.
Deals in the realty tech segment
There have been a few investments in real estate platforms in the past months after funding in such startups had slowed since the peak year of 2015.
Just in January, real estate software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform MultiplyMyLeads.com raised an undisclosed sum from investors including Frontline Strategy Funds and SucSEED Venture Partners.
In September last year, prop-tech firm Square Yards raises $20 million from media house Bennett Coleman & Co Limited (BCCL) and Japanese real estate investment company Genkai Capital.
Post 2015, the realty tech space witnessed a string of mergers and acquisitions. This included a merger between online real estate brokerage PropTiger.com and property listing portal Housing.com in 2017. PropTiger had earlier acquired property search portal Makaan.com.
News Corp, the largest investor in PropTiger, owns the parent of this website.
In early 2016, Tiger Global-backed CommonFloor merged with online classifieds player Quikr.
The early movers in the online real estate brokerage business were Info Edge’s 99acres.com and Magicbricks.com, in which the digital business arm of BCCL, Times Internet Ltd, had invested.
