In a Series A round led by Gaw Capital and Softbank Ventures Asia, Vietnam’s prop-tech startup, Propzy, has successfully raised US$25 million in funding.
With the fresh capital secured, the “FIRE-tech” (financial, insurance and real estate technology) startup – a term coined and preferred by CEO John Le – looks forward to furthering its leasing services by capitalizing on its online to offline platform competencies.
Founded in 2016, Propzy’s online to offline mode of operations are primarily in Ho Chi Minh City and its offline operations consist of 30 brick-and-mortar sale centres, with 400 sales staff employed. It looks to grow to 70 sales centres and 1,300 staff respectively in the next 18 months. These centres provide services which include (but are not limited to) logistical as well as administrative financing and insurance assistance for prospective buyers.
On the other hand, the online marketplace that it operates provides reliable purchases, sale, and tenancy services for listed properties which have undergone staff review that users can peruse – the number of properties that Propzy claims to have listed fall in the tens of thousands range.
As shared by Le, Propzy has closed over US$1 billion property transactions since its inception, putting Propzy as Vietnam’s leading offline-to-online real estate network.
With the World Bank categorising 70% of Vietnam’s population as economically secure, the country is considered to have one of the fastest-growing economies in the region after reaching its goal of 5% GDP growth in 2020 amidst a global health emergency.
In a vote of confidence, Senior Partner of SoftBank Ventures Asia, Danial Kang, shared that “The security that the Vietnamese economy offers to property investors and home buyers is ideal for Propzy to thrive.” Managing Partner of Gaw Capital, Humbert Pang supports the investment commenting that “Given the favourable macroeconomics exhibited by Vietnam and Gaw’s conviction in offline-to-online business models in real estate, we are excited by our investment into Propzy. We see the value proposition and steadfast vision that Propzy and its management team brings to the table and are therefore very optimistic in Propzy’s business and the market within which it operates.”
Although Propzy was not immune to the wide-reaching impacts of the pandemic as it saw a 70% reduction in business amidst the country’s lockdown back in April, Le noted a silver lining – more people had been doing online searches and submitting inquiries about property sale. Such occurences places Propzy’s trajectory at an optimistic level as Le shares that “We’re carrying an all-time high pipeline of deals, as consumers start to have more confidence and know where the market will be in two to three months. People still need houses, so deals in the pipeline are three times over the fourth-quarter average.”
Given Propzy’s promising forecast, Le adds that he looks forward to potential transactions closing quickly as it puts them on track towards achieving their goals by end 2020.