Daily Mirror (Sri Lanka)

Lamudi receives investment from Ringier AG and Axel Springer

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One of the leading real estate platforms, Lamudi has recently welcomed the two media and digital marketplac­e companies, Ringier AG and Axel Springer, as new strategic investors.

Both companies will share a seat in the advisory board, which will for now be taken over by Ringier. The funding amount is not made public but Lamudi Co-founder and CEO Kian Moini states that the majority of funding can and will be spent on growth, given the company’s comfortabl­e financial situation and clear path to breakeven.

Launched in late 2013 with Rocket Internet, Lamudi is a leading global real estate platform focusing exclusivel­y on emerging markets. The fastgrowin­g platform has active property portals available in Asia (the Philippine­s, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka) and Latin America (Mexico, Colombia, Peru).

Lamudi counts very wellknown investors, including Asia Pacific Internet Group, a joint venture of Rocket Internet and Ooredoo, Holtzbrinc­k Ventures and Tengelmann Ventures.

“We have proven to be of high value to consumers and industry players along the search and marketing of real estate. The new funding round will help us accelerate that, as well as significan­tly expand our efforts to add value along the transactio­n,” Moini said.

“Beyond the capital, we look forward to benefit from the learnings and knowledge of the marketplac­es and transactio­nal property businesses which are part of the portfolios of Axel Springer and Ringier.”

Lamudi revealed that it launched a tech-enabled brokerage business in Indonesia under a separate brand early this year and has already surpassed 100 transactio­ns per month in its ninth month of operations. According to Lamudi, this puts it not only well above its closest brokerage competitor despite having launched two years after but also among the fastest growing tech-enabled brokerages across emerging markets.

Ringier AG, Switzerlan­d’s leading internatio­nal media enterprise, is a very well-known digital marketplac­e investor in emerging markets across CEE, Africa and SEA.

Ringier Marketplac­es Head Robin Lingg stated, “Ringier stands for investing in sustainabl­e value creation. Lamudi very much matches our vision, as well as our interest in localized business models and country footprint. We have been deeply impressed by the company’s operative level of sophistica­tion, its global and local management team’s capabiliti­es and eagerness to create value. We believe that Kian and his team will drive significan­t change in the real estate industry in SEA and Mexico.”

Axel Springer SE President Classified­s Media Andreas Wiele said, “The team of Lamudi has built under the leadership of Kian Moini a fast-growing business in attractive markets. As one of the largest operators in the digital real estate space, we are convinced that we can help to further this developmen­t with our knowhow and expertise.”

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