The growing online property portal 99.co has officially launched its web and mobile search products, announcing a major round of funding and expansion into the residential sales segment.
Panel at the official launch of 99.co at the AVALON at Marina Bay Sands. From Left: Tan Kok Keong (CEO, REMS); Evan Chung (VP, DTZ); Darius Cheung (CEO, 99.co); Eduardo Saverin (Co-founder of Facebook and investor of 99.co); Eugene Lim (KEO, ERA); Mohd Ismail (CEO, Propnex). Photo credit: 99.co.
Online property search portal 99.co has officially launched an expansion of its services into the residential sales segment and new investments totaling S$2.7 million to date.
“When I was trying to find a home for myself here in Singapore a few years ago, 99.co didn’t exist and I naturally explored all web and mobile tools available, and I was nothing short of disappointed. Were the listings real and available? Was the pricing data and other details accurate? Why so many duplicates? It was a high-friction and time consumer experience that had to change,” says investor and user Eduardo Saverin.
The portal aims to “create the most trusted and authentic way for users to find a home they’ll love”.
99.co prioritises the end consumer experience first, promising unbiased search results, personalised to the query of the end user and sorted by the quality of the listing data versus by the promotional spend of the agents.
Since its soft-launch in November last year, 99co has introduced two mobile apps and ListRank, an algorithm that provides users the best and most relevant search results, and in the process doubled its web traffic.
In the same period, the company says its competitors such as PropertyGuru and iProperty have seen a decrease of web traffic between 10 and 20 percent.
Eduardo Saverin, co-founder of Facebook, sharing why he invested in 99.co. Photo credit: John Tan, taken on Samsung Galaxy Note 4.
99.co is extending its services from residential rental to also allow people to purchase.
“We really believe that the market needs a property search that prioritizes the user — and the numbers show that more and more people on the search for the next home are clearly prefer the way we cater to their needs with unbiased search results and genuine listings,” Darius Cheung, CEO and co-founder of 99.co said of the startup’s recent growth.
Currently, 99.co is limited only to residential Singapore property.
With the rate of listings increasing at 50% a month, users can now browse through a growing database of Singapore’s property — for rent or for sale.
99.co also announced new funding with additional investments coming from Venture Capital firm Sequoia Capital and Eduardo Saverin, co-founder of Facebook, bringing 99.co’s total funding to S$2.7 million.
Other venture capital firms providing the seed funding include 500 Startups, East Ventures, Fenox VC and Golden Gate Ventures.
99.co is a currently a team of 15, led by CEO Darius Cheung, a seasoned Singaporean entrepreneur who founded tenCube, a mobile security company that was acquired by security giant McAfee in 2010.
“99.co has the superstar team needed to tackle this incredibly hard but important issue. Not only is finding a home the biggest financial decision most people would ever make, it is also one of the most important milestones in life for one to create the right environment to develop a career, to build a marriage and to nurture a family and children – it affects everything! I’m very excited to see the growth of 99.co and it’s a clear indicator that it is on the right path to create the solution to truly help people live better,” added Saverin.
Darius co-founded 99.co with technology veterans Ruiwen Chua (Co-Founder of Hackerspace.sg), Anuj Bheda (MIT Dropout), Conor McLaughlin (UC Berkeley CS) and Dominic Ee (Founder, GoThere.sg).
99.co is currently used by thousands of agents to list property for free.
This includes entire agencies that have signed up, such as DWG, M.O.R.E., and SLP, as well as individual agents who have signed up from agencies such as Knight Frank, C&H, and JLL.
The website continues to grow its traffic at 25% per month and is now visited by more than 150,000 unique visitors a month, which translates to roughly 10,000 users per day.
99.co is now publicly contemplating a simple basic subscription model of $35/month and is taking feedback with various real estate agent leaders on what is the correct pricing model that encourages the best behaviour and efficient business for all stake holders.
There is currently a launch promotion where agents can signup and get 6 months subscription for free.
Tags: 99.co, Avalon, DTZ, ERA, Knight Frank, launch, MBS, portal, property, Propnex, real estate, REMS, Saverin, Sequoia, Singapore, website