Clikalia has raised $86 million to grow its iBuyer community around Latin America and Europe
- ByStartupStory | February 8, 2022
Companies like Opendoor ushered in a new manner of purchasing and selling real estate by introducing a powerful middleman who could acquire homes or flats at scale, rebuild them, and then resell people to homeowners at a profit. Clikalia, a new entrant in the so-called iBuyer area, has secured €75 million ($86 million) to expand its approach to European and Latin American markets.
The company’s main markets are Spain and Mexico, which has a current acquisition pace of 2,400 properties. By way of reference, Clikalia announced a 1,800 run rate only a short while ago when it acquired $518 million ($70 million in equity; the rest in debt) to grow the business.
The financing is co-led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Fifth Wall, with participation from previous investors Luxor Capital and Guillaume Pousaz. Although SoftBank seems to be not acquainted with the iBuyer concept, this is the company’s first property tech venture in Europe. It and Fifth Wall were both significant supporters of Opendoor, a pioneer in the field.
All of these steps, as well as the various variables that play out across different home types, demographics, and country regulations, create a highly fragmented market, which is one of the reasons how some venture capitalists are keen on Clikalia: it has established itself to be a platform that can possibly simplify all of that, not just for home buyers and sellers, but also for the plenty of others associated in the home buying and ownership process.
That isn’t guaranteed to become as easy and smooth as it promises, and many have found it to be a rocky market: Opendoor, for example, has a market valuation of just under $6 billion, down from $17 billion when it originally went public in a SPAC merger. However, there is still hope that the approach can provide positive returns in the long run.
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