Square Yards Gets $12M from Reliance Group

Square Yards, India’s online to offline (O2O) real estate transaction player, has raised $12 million investment from the Private Equity arm of Mr. Anil Ambani led Reliance Group.

Founded in 2013, Square Yards is the largest distributor for primary residential real estate in India, and it enjoys a leadership position in the Non Resident Indian (NRI) markets.

This is Square Yards’ first institutional investment after it had raised $11Mn from a clutch of HNW investors last year. With the fresh capital infusion, Square Yards aims to strengthen its distribution network across Indian and global markets, targeting double digit market share in Indian Real Estate distribution, expanding to 25+ countries on the ground advising on global real estate, and becoming largest mortgage advisory and developer marketing firm in India.

Kanika Gupta Shori, Founder & COO, Square Yards, said, “With this collaboration, the Company will be able to draw on Reliance’s extensive experience, particularly in scaling up the business to a higher growth trajectory and creating significant shareholder value in the process. Besides capital, we will also get access to best practices in running large consumer businesses at scale, with the participation of Reliance.”

Tanuj Shori, CEO and Founder added “ Timing of this investment couldn’t have been better for us, with Government’s blow on black money and RERA kicking in soon, Real Estate will get consolidated, organised and institutionalized. Secondary market will be most impacted (prices will drop) but eventually volume surge will help us win even more market share. This is beginning of organised real estate in India”.

At a time when it’s peers went totally online, Square Yards has invested in building a multi-modal global distribution channel comprising of largest field sales team of real estate advisors in India and in global NRI markets. Square Yards claims to deliver GTV of ~USD400-450mn/year, which puts Square Yards in the league of top 5 developers in India, by ability to move inventory. More importantly, sensing fragmented markets, Square Yards has aggressively expanded into mortgage advisory (India’s 3rd largest by volumes) and is replicating Indian market successes to global real estate.

The company has been able to generate exceptional growth in all key business metrics, and currently boasts of net revenue run rate of $1.5Mn - $2Mn per month (annualized ~ $25Mn) and transaction run rate of ~600-800/month; exponentially more than any online or organized offline real estate player in India.