As Join SPAC, PropertyGuru Will Increase Its Fintech Offerings.

Key Sentence:

• Southeast Asia’s largest online real estate marketplace – aims to improve financial services to mitigate the growing demand for real estate in the area.

“We plan to continue to innovate and evolve,” said Steve Melhuish, Co-Founder of PropertyGuru, in a recent virtual interview with Forbes Asia. Melhuish PropertyGuru said that Singapore-based Unicorn would expand the company beyond its core business. And introduce additional services such as mortgages and home insurance, and data analytics.

PropertyGuru announced its fintech plans in July after announcing a merger with Nasdaq-listed Bridgetown 2 Holdings. A dematerialization company controlled by billionaires Richard Lee and Peter Teal. Melhuish said that the deal. He said that the company would generate $431 million in gross sales as part of the transaction. Providing sufficient capital to create organic and inorganic growth.

There are tremendous opportunities across the region as the company estimates the total addressable market in Southeast Asia at $8.1 billion. In addition, PropertyGuru expects its revenue to reach $61.9 million by 2025.

Fintech services are growing in popularity in Singapore, its biggest market. For example, PropertyGuru launched a mortgage brokerage product in the city-state at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. And generated over $1 billion ($745 million) in credit over the past 12 months, CEO Harry Krishnan told Forbes Asia.

According to Singapore, 57% of the company’s sales were generated in 2020, according to PropertyGuru.

Housing demand in the city-state is growing on expectations that Singapore’s economy will recover gradually as the government eases pandemic restrictions. Now that more than 80% of the population is fully vaccinated. As a result, total sales of private homes in Lion City rose to 16,549 in the first half. Increasing 139% year-on-year, government figures showed.

For real estate on the Internet. . “It was a very frustrating process,” he recalls. This made him consider the possibility of starting an online real estate market.