Housing.com finds a new owner: Aurum PropTech seals Rs 458 crore stock deal

Aurum PropTech is adding one of India’s best-known property portals to its stable. The company’s board on Thursday approved a deal to acquire 100% of Locon Solutions, the entity that owns Housing.com, from REA India in an all-stock transaction valued at Rs 458 crore.

Instead of paying cash, Aurum will issue 1.98 crore shares priced at Rs 231.4 apiece to REA India. That share swap will lift REA Group’s stake in the listed Indian company from its existing 5.5% to 24.9% once the allotment goes through. The Australian digital property company first backed the Housing.com ecosystem back in 2017, when it invested in Elara Technologies, the parent that then held Housing.com, PropTiger.com and Makaan.com. REA raised that stake to 61% in 2020, and Elara was renamed REA India the following year.

The Housing.com purchase slots into a proptech portfolio Aurum has been building for years. It already owns home rental platform NestAway, picked up for up to Rs 90 crore in 2023 at a steep markdown from the startup’s 2019 valuation, and student housing business HelloWorld. Aurum says the plan now is to link property searches, developer inventory, brokers, rentals and transactions across these platforms through a shared AI and data infrastructure.

Alongside the share issue to REA, Aurum will separately hand its promoter, Aurum RealEstate Developers, 51 lakh convertible warrants at the same Rs 231.4 price. That could bring in up to Rs 118 crore in fresh cash, and if the warrants are fully converted, the promoter’s stake in Aurum would rise to 41.1% on a fully diluted basis.

The deal still needs shareholder and regulatory sign-off, and Aurum expects it to close by September 30. For REA, the arrangement lets it keep exposure to the Indian real estate market while folding its India business into a listed local partner rather than running it independently.

Housing.com itself has had a rocky run since it was founded in 2012. It grew into one of India’s most talked-about property startups before a public boardroom fight led to the ouster of co-founder and chief executive Rahul Yadav in 2015, after which the company restructured and cut jobs. The Aurum deal marks its latest change of ownership structure as it moves fully under an Indian listed proptech player.

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