Square Yards, Indias leading proptech platform, has acquired an innovative artificial intelligence based platform PropVR. This will help the company build more interactive digital experiences for property buyers and stakeholders via virtual reality, 3D technology and augmented reality. Both PropVR founders will be joining Square Yards while investors in the firm such as real estate player Brigade Groups REAP (Real Estate Accelerator Programme) and others, will come on –board as co-investors alongside. The all-stock transaction has been financed via internal accruals at Square Yards.
The AR-VR market, as per Goldman Sachs, is anticipated to hit $80 billion within 2025. Global entities in the space have already gone public and Matterport Inc is one such entity that has achieved valuation exceeding $3 billion. Square Yards acquisition of PropVR comes after it acquired Azuro last year (one of Indias biggest property management and rental platforms) and PropsAMC thereafter (one of the leading asset management, data intelligence and real estate services firms) through all-stock swap deals.
The Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Square Yards, Tanuj Shori, stated that PropVR will help in revolutionizing the entire digital realty landscape and customer experiences while also digitizing and indexing the entire real estate world through creation of digital twins for every individual organized property or project in the country. Square Yards posted 30% of sequential growth in its consolidated revenues for the quarter ending in December, touching Rs. 89.2 crore in revenues. The companys best-ever quarter (by revenue) also came with top-line rising by 12% from the year-ago period, driven hugely by the NRI and international property market segments.
The new deal will help create a full stack solution of real estate services at Square Yards, encompassing everything from mortgages, search and discovery, transactions, rentals and interiors to after-sales services and property management. PropVR was founded by Sunder Jagannathan and Srinath Kandala and has an AI-based platform converting physical areas or floor plans into 3D interactive walkthroughs within a few minutes, thereby saving on weeks and months of time otherwise, cutting spends on real estate marketing by 80% and also scaling up consumer engagement by 400%.
This platform facilitates virtual showcases of real estate via immersive walkthroughs and in-built video conferencing. The company is now planning to showcase available real-time inventory while facilitating end-to-end transactions on the platform along with launching new experiences on the Square Yards portal for users to explore and navigate. Realty companies usually spend a sizable amount of time and resources in helping people visualize their projects. With solutions like these, expect a major industry-wide transformation in times to come. The market for augmented, virtual and 3D reality keeps growing swiftly owing to the global effect of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Square Yards is a technology-enabled, global real estate aggregator and India’s largest player for primary residential real estate. It’s subsidiary Square Capital is one of the largest marketplace for secured mortgages in India. Square Yards platform offers an integrated consumer experience & covers the full real-estate journey from search, discovery to research, transactions, home loans and post-sales service – fully integrating buyers to an extensive network of 500+ partner real estate developers, and 90+ banks & NBFCs. Square Yards is led by accomplished professionals, ex-bankers, and Ivy school alumni and is backed by the competence of more than 2500 employees in 30 cities and ten countries.