Introduction on the property portals’ world
At FBW, we follow closely real estate websites, also called property portals. Globally, Zillow (USA) is the highest revenue generator, with $2.7 billion in 2019 (FBW). Many other big actors exist, for example RightMove in the UK had revenue of £289m, on which it made an operating profit of £214m.
Apart from their revenues, these companies’ valuations can be quite impressive. Recently, the European portal Idealista was valued close to €1 billion.
Of course, as the leading property portals are impressive cash-machines, you might think that it is blocking the market from new entrants. But that’s not the case. Indeed, over the past years, there have been many cases of leaders losing their leaderships, and new entrants making impressive breakthroughs, challenging the leaders. One recent example being FangDD, challenging WUBA, Anjuke, and SouFun/Fang, with a different business model, and a massive market penetration achieved in very little time (read more).
Liveio.com – a new property portal with great potential
I discovered Liveio in March 2020 while Googling “Buy real estate Europe“. In a few words, Liveio.com, as of July 2020, is a new property portal with amazing potential. Created by young Swedish entrepreneurs, my conviction is that with time and money, it can become a very strong actor.
Before we get into more details, here below is a screenshot of their current homepage. As you can see, it presents itself as a way to find your home. Nothing original so far, right? So, what caught my attention? Keep reading below.
Reasons Why Liveio.com Can Be Successful
1. Attention Given To Details
Considering that only €100,000 have been invested so far to develop the portal, I am amazed by the level of details already available on the website. The design in general is good, but what is even more impressive is that they already have functionalities that many mature portals still do not have. Indeed from the property detail page, you can find:
- a well-designed mortgage calculator
- a crime index (very rare on European portals)
- a school searcher, to find neighboring schools
There is also an Agent Directory with languages spoken, and ratings of the agency. These two functionalities are features missing from leading portals such as Idealista.com, while they are present on portals such as Zillow.com or Realtor.com, leading American portals. How can a new startup, Liveio.com, already beat such existing actors in terms of user experience, on so many fronts?
My perspective is that if they can build such a great portal with €100K, we should want to fund their company with €1m, because their talent is nothing short of impressive.
2. Need for Acceleration : looking to raise €200,000
Therefore, considering that they already have a great platform and their first 100 customers. Well-known companies appear in the searches such as, Wretman Estate, Knight Frank Marbella and Keller Williams Marbella. However it is clear that to become successful, they need more money, they need investors to finance their growth properly. Indeed, in order to accelerate a PropTech such as this, especially a property portal, it must invest in:
- Traffic Acquisition
- IT – Technical Department
- Customer Acquisition
Indeed, now that the platform is live and has its first 100 customers, it must generate traffic & leads for these customers, through traffic acquisition which is costly. It must also be able to invest in IT, because a website is only as fast as it can afford to be, and that does not come free. Lastly, growth will come from further customer acquisition.
So as of August 2020, current revenue is €0 because to get where they are today (17,500 listings, 80 active estate agencies, 1425 total registered users including private accounts), Liveio.com promised advertisers to publish listings for free, until they start getting leads. Therefore now, it is time to invest in order to start generating leads, and grow the company.
If you are a potential investor, reach out to me to know more about Liveio. Indeed, the founders of Liveio.com are currently looking to raise up to €200,000 in order to invest in website speed, and traffic acquisition. With €100,000 the website can be amazing in terms of new speed and functionalities. Also this will cover server costs for 24 months. Then, they will invest €100,000 in advertising. Therefore, €200,000 will get everything running smoothly over the next 24 months.