The CEO and founder of McMakler.
(Photo: McMakler)
Düsseldorf, Frankfurt According to Handelsblatt information, the Berlin real estate start-up McMakler will receive a further 50 million euros from investors. The valuation of the company after the investment is now 800 million euros. The names of the investors in particular are interesting: As the Handelsblatt learned from market circles, the financing round is led by Baillie Gifford and Warburg Pincus.
The company confirmed the information on request: “We are proud to have won Baillie Gifford, one of the world’s leading pre-IPO investors with unique expertise in setting up technology companies, as a partner,” said McMakler boss Felix Jahn. “Together with our existing investor Warburg Pincus, who has increased his stake and thus confirmed his confidence in our company, we now have exactly the right partner at our side for the years to come. “
According to Handelsblatt information, McMakler generated almost 100 million euros in net sales last year, which means that the company should be roughly on schedule. It didn’t want to comment on the number when asked. In 2020, McMakler said it had a turnover of 53 million euros.
McMakler told Handelsblatt that the additional capital would be used to expand the core business in Germany, invest more in its own technology platform Immoforce and strengthen its leading position as Germany’s best-known brokerage company.
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Baillie Gifford’s entry suggests that McMakler plans to go public in the course of 2022 or early 2023. The Scottish fund is known, for example, for its investments in the German companies Scout24 and the air taxi company Lilium – and as an investor in Tesla. Investments shortly before an IPO are typical for the company.
McMakler wants to benefit from the boom in the real estate market
The start-up, founded in 2015, has taken on the lucrative property market and hopes to benefit from the property price boom. In view of the steadily rising housing prices in Germany, many Germans try to cut their costs when looking for a new home by going without a traditional broker. Online providers such as McMakler or Homeday also take money for their services, but usually significantly less.
McMakler itself employs more than 400 real estate agents. They are supported by around 600 employees at the headquarters in Berlin, where, among other things, McMakler’s analysis and marketing technology is developed. Accordingly, company boss Jahn sees his company as a technology company whose work is based primarily on its own technology platform.
This takes on the evaluation of countless data, for example to determine the property value – and in the opinion of the start-up entrepreneur better than the competition. It is an open secret that “brokers do not offer the services that are in demand nowadays,” Jahn once said in an interview with Handelsblatt.
“Many traditional brokers are still working at the level of 1960, with telephone, fax and, if necessary, e-mails. If you want to use a comparison: These traditional brokers are like a telephone with a rotary dial – and we are an iPhone. ”McMakler now sells and rents real estate in Germany, Austria and France as a so-called hybrid broker.
Multiple competitors
But McMakler isn’t the only start-up targeting the market. Competitors include Homeday and Hausgold. The latter had won a prominent investor just a few weeks ago: the former Commerzbank boss Martin Blessing joined Hausgold with partners.
Homeday and McMakler had last completed financing rounds in 2020, at that time McMakler received the equivalent of 42 million euros from the US financial investor Warburg Pincus Funds, at Homeday the investors Axel Springer and Purplebricks increased their stake by 40 million euros.
Even then, McMakler had a prominent advocate among investors in the financial scene: Ex-Telekom boss René Obermann, currently Co-Head Europe and Managing Director at Warburg Pincus Germany, had campaigned for the start-up at the US company. Because he is “firmly convinced that this company can become an innovative market leader”, as he told the Handelsblatt.
More: McMakler ends 2020 with a significant increase in sales.