Habi, a buying and selling real estate platform based in Bogotá, announced on Wednesday that it had raised a $200 million Series C round led by Homebrew and SoftBank Latin America Fund. With the new funding, which has twice the size of its Series B, it became the first proptech unicorn in Spanish-speaking Latin America – the first startup in the segment to reached such status in the region was the Brazil-based QuintoAndar, in 2019. Without revealing its current valuation, Habi also claims to be the highest-valued Latin American startup with a female co-founder and CEO: Brynne McNulty Rojas, who created Habi alongside Sebastian Noguera.
The round also had the participation of other VC and private equity regional and global investors, such as Banco Mercantil del Norte, Institución de Banca Múltiple, Banorte, Tiger Global, Inspired Capital, Clocktower Ventures, Endeavor Catalyst, and Henry Kravis (an American billionaire that has also invested in the Brazilian log tech startup CargoX).
Founded in late 2019, Habi uses a custom-built pricing algorithm and database, which is ‘fed’ not only with information gathered by the startup but collected through partnerships with other real estate and financial companies, in addition to government institutions in Colombia. With it, it says to be capable of selling a real state property in ten days, giving homeowners reliability and access to liquidity. According to Habi, brokers and banks can also benefit from the startup‘s operation, using its database to harness data that empowers them and make better lending decisions.
It currently operates in more than 15 cities in Colombia and Mexico, and it claims to be largest . The larger footprint in its second market came with the acquisition Iast January, of two Mexican online marketplaces: Propiedades.com and iBuyer Tu Canton.
Over the past year, Habi has invested not only in building out its services and proprietary database but offering customers a full stack of services. The startup does not disclose its revenue number but says it saw its turnover grow 20 times in 2021.
“As it’s continued to grow its business, Habi is now enhancing access to related financial products like mortgages, providing independent brokers with improved access and tools to build their own businesses, and collaborating with financial institutions. We believe that by removing barriers between the growing middle class and a functioning housing market, Brynne, Sebastian and the team at Habi could unlock generational wealth creation for all of Latin America,” said Satya Patel, managing partner of Homebrew, in a press statement.
Recently, Habi also announced it is building an exclusive partnership with Banorte to offer its customers financial services. With the new funding, it highlighted that it will use the resources “to continue its geographic expansion,” eyeing all major cities across Spanish-speaking Latin America, deepening its suite of offerings, “with a focus on embedded financial services.”
