Vietnamese proptech startup Rever, which leverages technology to help real estate agents provide more tailored and transparent services to customers, has raised another USD 2.3 million to expand in Vietnamese key cities.
The funding was led by the GEC-KIP Technology and Innovation Fund (GEC-KIP Fund), a SGD 120 million (roughly USD 87 million) venture fund co-managed by Singapore’s Golden Equator Capital and Korea Investment Partners.
This came after VinaCapital Ventures also announced a USD 4 million investment in Rever at the Vietnam Venture Summit back in June.
Founded by Manh Phan in 2016, a former marketing director of Zalo, Vietnam’s popular homegrown messaging and social platform, Rever operates in a very fragmented and opaque real estate market that is often riddled with scams. The startup works with nearly 7,000 agencies and more than 100,000 part time agents.
The investment will help Rever open 30 additional large experience centres within the next 18 months and start expanding beyond Ho Chi Minh City, including into the capital Hanoi and other Vietnamese key cities. Rever reported over USD 1.5 million in revenues in 2018 and expects to triple that revenue in 2019, having done almost 1,000 transactions year-to-date.
Daren Tan, managing partner for venture investments at Golden Equator Capital, said in a press statement that Chinese experience has shown that this “hybrid offline-and-online proptech model can succeed in a very fragmented market like Vietnam.”
Synclare Kim, executive director at Korea Investment Partners, will be joining Rever’s Board of Directors to provide hands-on support to the company, representing the GEC-KIP Fund.
This investment into Rever marks the GEC-KIP Fund’s second investment into a proptech company in the region. In September 2018, GEC-KIP led a SGD 4 million investment in Singapore’s proptech marketplace Ohmyhome.