Proptech startup Dongnae mentioned Tuesday it plans to accumulate Stevens, a South Korean firm that operates co-living enterprise Dears.
The 2 corporations didn’t disclose the acquisition value, however Dongnae mentioned it would buy Stevens with a mixture of money and fairness. The Seoul-based proptech outfit beforehand raised a complete of $34 million, together with a $21 million Sequence A spherical it introduced final 12 months. Dongnae expects to shut the transaction by the top of September. The corporate’s buyers embrace the likes of NFX, Daol Funding, Hana Monetary, MetaProp, Maple VC and WeWork co-founder Miguel McKelvey.
Dongnae’s major product, Dongnae FLEX, gives a furnished house rental on its platform with versatile lease phrases for as quick a interval as 4 weeks and decrease rental deposits.
The addition of Dears will enable the corporate to improve the Dongnae FLEX service, handle properties “with a collective AUM of over $400 million,” and span 90 house complexes throughout Seoul and Pangyo, the place a bunch of tech companies, together with Kakao and Naver, are situated. Dears Pangyo has greater than 520 studio flat items in Pangyo.
The outfit additionally will co-manage the Dears Myeongdong constructing in Seoul alongside Xi S&D. Dongnae will handle business areas of Dears Myeongdong, consisting of B1, 14F and the rooftop, co-founder and CEO Matthew Shampine mentioned, including that Xi S&D will function Dears Myungdong’s 112 items that supply each short- and long-term stays.
Dongnae says that is its first acquisition. The present management group at Stevens will be a part of Dongnae to help enlargement and proceed to construct on their progress to this point, Shampine instructed TechCrunch.
“We’re in lively discussions with a lot of landlords and land builders to open extra buildings to be operated as and thru Dongnae,” Shampine mentioned.
Former WeWork executives Shampine and Insong Kim co-founded Dongnae in 2020 to digitize South Korea’s fragmented actual property market. In South Korea, individuals should work with dozens of brokers to discover a new house, and there are two choices to pay hire within the nation: paying a month-to-month payment (identical to in lots of elements of the world) and paying every little thing prematurely, known as Jeonse.
“Since our Sequence A in March of 2022, we now have been targeted on rising our actual property portfolio, getting buyer suggestions, and constructing the required front- and back-end expertise to really create a greater technique to hire houses in Korea,” Shampine mentioned.
The corporate has invested “closely” in enhancing the client expertise since final 12 months. The outfit says it has digitized the complete process as an alternative of the standard lengthy, paper-filed leasing course of and launched its personal digital actual property guide Suzie by integrating synthetic intelligence into its platform. Like a chatbot, Suzie solutions potential residents’ questions on housing or Dongnae’s items in any spoken language.
“From Adam Neumann’s Circulate and firms similar to Mint Home, Zeus Residing, and Blueground in America to Asian and European startups like Cove and Habyt — there was nice innovation within the residential rental market all over the world over the previous few years,” Shampine mentioned in an announcement. “Our group is dedicated to bringing about a greater technique to hire right here in Korea.”
Dongnae’s utility is now out there for obtain on Android and iOS.
