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Startup Story: How Commonfloor established an immense client base

Commonfloor Founders - Vikas Malpani, Sumit Jain, and Lalit Mangal
Commonfloor Founders – Vikas Malpani, Sumit Jain, and Lalit Mangal

Real estate has always been a profitable sector for people doing business, and many people have found their opportunities and earned well through the real estate market. Similarly, many startups tried to take over the real estate business, and one of the companies in this business is Commonfloor, who is in the leading position when it comes to real estate.

An intro to Commonfloor

Commonfloor Founders
Commonfloor Founders – Vikas Malpani, Sumit Jain, and Lalit Mangal

Founded by Vikas Malpani, Sumit Jain, and Lalit Mangal in 2007 in a garage, Commonfloor (1) now has a big lavish office. Commonfloor has indeed found a reliable way to increase their business and had got immensely successful.

Commonfloor is one of India’s biggest online real estate portal and has assisted over lakhs of customers. It has expanded its presence in over 120 cities and has the vision to digitalize real estate throughout the country, leaving no stones unturned. It works for people who are in search of houses or residential areas for their investment.

How did Commonfloor emerge?

CommonFloor App Screenshots
CommonFloor App Screenshots

A person generally gathers new ideas from their own experience. And similarly, the concept of Commonfloor was generated when the three founders came to Bangalore and couldn’t find a place to live even after hours of searching houses. When finally they found a place to live, they experienced issues which made them without a roof again and had to start the house-hunt again from zero. Hence, learning from their own experience, they did not want anyone else to face a similar situation. Thus, the idea of Commonfloor was generated so people can easily find accommodation without any issues.

Real estate and finding a proper house to live in was a common problem which most of us encountered and made things more difficult for our family members, and hence looking up for the ease of people, Commonfloor was raised, which provided people with options of houses they are looking for.

Business Model & Revenue Generation of Commonfloor

Through our sources, we can say that the business model of Commonfloor is somewhat similar to the company: Google; listed below are some points which can denote their business model.

  • They have exclusive software for the management of a society, and one has to pay for buying that software, which keeps a check on the community’s control. The builders buying it have to pay while the users who reside or have an apartment there use it for free.
  • The people interested in showing their model and flats of their society also display their advertisements in the Commonfloor portal. Hence, to advertise, a minimal charge has to be paid, which acts as their revenue.
  • Architects, Plumbers, etc., also find Commonfloor as a way to serve in a society or building and have to get in touch with the Commonfloor group and thereby have to pay for their linking.

These are a few methods through which the Commonfloor group works.

Funds raised by Commonfloor

Fundings from various ventures have made Commonfloor rise quickly, and since the beginning, Commonfloor got funds. The first funding was generated by Accel Partners in 2009 and later from Tiger Global Management with Accel Partners, but the amount remained undisclosed.

With a Series C funding from their partners, they got up a fund of $7.5 million in 2013. Moreover, as they are expanding to a large extent, they received Series F funding through Google Capital. Before them, The Series D & E Funds were raised Tiger Global with $10.5 million and $30 million, respectively.

Hence, we can see that how Commonfloor is rising at a continuous level and serving people across the country with a natural performance.

Marketing Strategies

One of the significant factors was the marketing strategy that made Commonfloor grow soo fast and at a tremendous rate. The company spends almost 30% of its total amount on developing the audience through marketings. They believe in word of mouth, which mainly has helped Commonfloor gain success.

  • They have active social media accounts of Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube as well, with a substantial and broad audience connected with their page.
  • They keep on uploading videos of some of their houses and provide a 360-degree view of the house through which people can see it, and interesting ones could call and buy it quickly.
  • For those you did not notice, Commonfloor did their in-movie advertisement in the film Katti Batti and the series Permanent Roommates, which drove a lot of people to buy through their portal.
  • They also had several ads on the television; the first advertisement came up with the tag line “no darr. Find Ghar,” which caught the attention of a lot of people and thereby increased their sales.

Getting acquired by Quikr

CommonFloor

Seeing the immense success, big companies like Quikr couldn’t overlook them, and in the race of expanding the business, Quikr acquired over Commonfloor for $100 million. Although they have a share-swap deal and no exchange of money, Commonfloor got a less than 8% stake of Quikr, and the deal overwhelmed the people and people in the business of Indian, making considerable publicity.

Future of the Commonfloor Business

Commonfloor expanded at a considerable level and created immense opportunities for people. Their portal aims to achieve a 100% more revenue growth with a motive to make $25 million turnovers in the coming years. They have delivered more than a thousand people successfully and aim to enhance their services even more. It has been a leading real estate influencer in Tier 1 and metro cities.

Talking about Global influence, Commonfloor is planning to expand its service in the UK, USA, UAE, Singapore, and South Africa. Commonfloor can be claimed as the real estate giant in a few coming years.

With a thriving market and hard work, Commonfloor has been performing well in this business and is planned to achieve a higher height. With such unique strategies and ideas, Commonfloor has set an example for people with the company to flow and thereby get successful.

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