After a record year of growth, award-winning property data and estate agent prospecting platform, Homesearch, has today completed a £5m Series A funding round with Octopus Ventures, the venture capitalist firm that originally backed Zoopla.
Homesearch, which enables estate agents to generate new leads and win more instructions, will use the major investment to fund its ambitious growth plans. It has quickly become the go-to prospecting solution for established market leaders such as Knight Frank, Hamptons, Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward, (as well as over a thousand leading independent estate agents), and was voted ‘Best Instruction Generation Tool’ at this year’s industry ESTAS awards.
The London-based firm will now further enrich the data available to agents and rapidly expand its product base to better embed property data into the housing market customer journey, to enhance the volume and quality of seller and landlord leads delivered to its estate agent subscribers.
Providing the most comprehensive information on every home in the UK and all the tools needed to stay ahead in the property market, agents currently using Homesearch see an average 1,100% return on investment (ROI) through using the platform. Part of the latest investment will help the company to further increase that ROI to 1,500% by the end of 2022.
Giles Ellwood, Homesearch CEO, said “We believe that information should sit at the very heart of an agent's prospecting, marketing, and customer service and it was this vision that Octopus shared with us immediately. Our unique way of interpreting and processing data into usable information with straightforward tools allows estate agents to support their clients with finding their dream homes in record time. And that results in more instructions and many more satisfied clients. This major investment is a key stage in our exciting journey towards transforming the way estate agents do business.”
Uthish Ranjan, Principal at Octopus Ventures, said: “Homesearch has built a compelling product for its target customers – the underlying data is its core strength and one of the aspects of the business we are most excited about. This has come through in its performance, with the company delivering a strong period of growth over the last 18 months alongside a supportive customer base. We are excited about working with Giles and team on delivering their next stage of the company’s evolution.”
Giles Ellwood added: “The future is so bright for the property industry. The need to move home will never go away and we’re looking forward to making it a more proactive, joined-up process for both agents and their clients.”
About Homesearch
Homesearch is the next-generation property data and prospecting system, where property professionals can find, target, and win new instructions or simply research the housing market using comprehensive property data.
Holding 24 billion pieces of data on the entire property stock of England and Wales, Homesearch is a powerful platform that enables users to find comprehensive, accurate and impartial information on any residential property, whether it’s on or off the market and use that information to eliminate waste and intelligently target homes for new instructions.
For more information, visit the Homesearch landing page on Kerfuffle or join the conversation on social media @HomesearchHQ
About Octopus Ventures
For the people and ideas that will change the world, because we believe you can build a better tomorrow by investing in it.
We can back you at every stage of your journey, from ideas on a page through to IPO. Each year we deploy more than £200 million across five areas where we see maximum potential for impact: health, fintech, deep tech, consumer and B2B software. With many years of experience and expertise investing in each of these areas, our team can help our portfolio companies scale at speed.
For us, investment is about more than money. Being truly invested is about giving time, energy and focus; working with founders to give them the best chance of success. It means a shared commitment to solving the big problems that matter.
We’ve backed the likes of BoughtByMany, Cazoo, Depop, Elvie and WaveOptics, while others have gone on to join forces with the world’s largest businesses.
We are based in London and New York with a network of partners across the U.S and Asia.
Visit octopusventures.com
