News Corp has acquired a 25% stake in the parent company of PropTiger.com, a leading digital real estate marketing platform in India, for US$30 million in a move expected to help complement and build on the strength of it’s collection of businesses in news, book publishing and digital real estate.
News Corp owns Move, Inc., operator of realtor.com. Move has the most up-to-date and accurate for-sale listings of any digital real estate company in America and owns a 61.6% stake in REA Group, operator of the leading Australian residential property website, realestate.com.au. REA also has a substantial stake in iProperty, the leading digital real estate advertising business across South East Asia.
PropTiger.com will benefit from News Corp’s digital and product expertise, drawing on its experience with REA and Move to serve India’s 270 million plus Internet users.
Robert Thomson, Chief Executive of News Corp. “PropTiger.com will provide analysis, information and insight so that Indians will be better informed when they make the most significant investment decision any family will make, buying a home. We believe the site will be the most important platform for developers seeking to market new properties and the most trusted and reliable source for purchasers, many of whom will be buying for the first time.”
At least 10,000 properties, with a combined value of over US$1 billion, have already been bought by Indian homebuyers through PropTiger.com. It is estimated that India will be a US$158 billion residential real estate market by 2020.2
News Corp’s investment is in Elara Technologies Pte Ltd (“Elara”), which owns PropTiger.com. PropTiger.com was founded in 2011 by Dhruv Agarwala, Kartik Varma and Prashan Agarwal. Among its other investors are Accel Partners, SAIF Partners and Horizen Ventures. As part of the investment, Raju Narisetti, News Corp Senior Vice President, Strategy, will also join Elara’s Singapore-based board.
“News Corp and PropTiger.com have a shared vision to use technology, high quality data and rich content to bring transparency and simplicity to the home buying experience and to help consumers make well informed decisions,” said Dhruv Agarwala, co-founder of PropTiger.com
News Corp also owns Dow Jones, Wall Street Journal and HarperCollins Publishers businesses.