News Corp, the media and publishing company controlled by Rupert Murdoch, has acquired a 25% stake in Indian real estate website PropTiger.com for $30 million.
The investment further validates News Corp’s focus on India, where it already has presence through Dow Jones, Wall Street Journal and HarperCollins Publishers.
Raju Narisetti, senior vice president-strategy at News Corp has joined the board of PropTiger.com’s Singapore-based parent company, Elara Technologies Pte Ltd post this investment.
PropTiger.com, which is backed by SAIF Partners, Accel Partners and Horizen Ventures, will also receive another $7 million from its current investors in this funding round.
“News Corp’s investment continues the acceleration of its global digital footprint with an emphasis on India,” News Corp said in a statement. “The investment creates a network effect to complement and build on the strength of the company’s collection of businesses, which include leaders in news, book publishing and digital real estate.”
PropTiger.com was founded in February 2011 by Dhruv Agarwal (co-founder) and Kartik Varma (co-founder), who were classmates at Harvard Business School, along with Prashan Agarwal (co-founder), an alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur. The website is an independent real estate advisor with presence across India and has over 250 developer partners who market their new properties through the online platform.
According to the statement issued by News Corp, around 10,000 properties with a combined value of over $1 billion have been bought by Indian homebuyers through PropTiger.com since its inception. The company gets almost 40% of its traffic from mobile application now.
“India has more than 270 million Internet users and the number is growing exponentially. There is no doubt that the development of digital is empowering individuals and transforming industries, and we are extremely enthusiastic about the potential for PropTiger.com as the country fulfills its digital destiny,” said 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.”
Two months ago, News Corp had agreed to buy Move, which operates a US property website realtor.com, for $950 million. The New York-based company also holds a majority stake in REA Group, which operates Australian residential property website realestate.com.au.
“Under the leadership of Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch and Chief Executive Robert Thomson, News Corp brings digital real estate know-how, product experience and content expertise that will help us drive product innovation, customer engagement and traffic growth,” said Dhruv Agarwala co-founder of PropTiger.com.
