Direct sales company iProperty, which bans estate agents from its site, has launched a £2.5m investment drive to fund future expansion.
Chaired by Brian Blake, ex-managing director of Swinton Insurance, iProperty is seeking £500,000 via crowdfunding site Seedrs and £2 million from traditional venture capital. The company says it is now valued at £8m.
"Having spent only a modest amount on test marketing we have properties listed in around 20 countries and have more UK listings than any online agent. Most of the new funding will be spent on marketing so the impact we make will be significant" says Blake.
iProperty Company is completely free with a Buyer Guarantee' pledging that any potential buyer will always be contacting the owner directly - no agents are permitted on the site. Revenue is generated by offering a range of optional property related services.
2015 will be a year of disruption in the UK estate agents' market. It's clear that consumers are increasingly turning away from the traditional way of selling property claims John Candia, iProperty chief executive.
Comments
Any of you doubters bothered to even look into this business Thought not, dont knock people for trying to change things for the better.
Am I missing something here , cannot see how this is going to work at all, can anybody explain!!!!!
Good luck to them - they are most certainly going to need it!!
Hang on a minute. They're valuing themselves at 8m when they don't even own iproperty.com or iproperty.co.uk I hope iPropertyGroup (Asia's equivalent of rightmove) doesn't get wind of them....
Gosh it seems all you need to do these days is bang out a few press releases, criticise an industry, bang in a load of free listings (after a modest investment!) and you can value your company at 8m. Its simply the modern day pyramid selling: you make up a value, take small amounts of money from lots of people and then a couple of people at the top have a much bigger amount!