Google Invests $5 Million In NoBroker

Google LLC has invested $5 million, or about Rs 40 crore, in real estate platform NoBroker Technologies Solution Pvt. in late-stage funding.

The investment, as part of an extended Series E round, came at a post-money valuation of about $1.06 billion, Saurabh Garg, the chief business officer at the Bengaluru-based company, told BQ Prime on Wednesday.

Google has invested at the same valuation that the unicorn touched in November 2021 when it raised nearly Rs 1,600 crore. Garg said Google ploughed money via its $10-billion India Digitization Fund, which has backed telecom giants Bharti Airtel Ltd. and Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd.

Existing investors in NoBroker's Series E round included General Atlantic Service Co., Tiger Global Management LLC, and Moore Strategic Ventures, LLC.

"We have more than Rs 1,500 crore in the bank, almost the entire Series E amount that we raised," Garg said. "But since Google reached out to us, we couldn't say no and simply extended our Series E round to include them."

The co-founder said it's a "small $5 million funding", but it is more of a technology- and product-led strategic investment with Google. "We have started working with them on a couple of projects that should start rolling out in the next two months."

NoBroker caters to customers looking to buy, sell, or rent properties without paying any brokerage. It offers services like legal documentation and online rent payment ser, and also society management services through its NoBrokerHood app.

It currently operates across Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai, the National Capital Region, and Pune, while NoBrokerHood operates in five additional cities—Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, Jaipur, Kolkata, and Lucknow.

NoBroker Co-founder Akhil Gupta said the objective is to aggressively grow and reach 1 lakh societies in the next few years.

"One of the key areas where we'll leverage this partnership with Google will be to build unique solutions that help simplify the lives of the residents of NoBrokerHood societies," the chief technology and product officer said.

Founded in 2013, the platform is also backed by Elevation Capital and Beenext.