Proptech startup Dongnae mentioned Tuesday it plans to accumulate Stevens, a South Korean firm that operates co-living enterprise Dears.
The 2 firms didn’t disclose the acquisition worth, however Dongnae mentioned it can 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 yr. Dongnae expects to shut the transaction by the top of September. The corporate’s traders embrace the likes of NFX, Daol Funding, Hana Monetary, MetaProp, Maple VC and WeWork co-founder Miguel McKelvey.
Dongnae’s major product, Dongnae FLEX, provides a furnished residence rental on its platform with versatile lease phrases for as brief 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 residence 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 models 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 models that supply each short- and long-term stays.
Dongnae says that is its first acquisition. The present management crew at Stevens will be a part of Dongnae to assist enlargement and proceed to construct on their progress so far, Shampine instructed TechCrunch.
“We’re in energetic discussions with plenty 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 need to work with dozens of brokers to discover a new residence, and there are two choices to pay hire within the nation: paying a month-to-month price (identical to in lots of components of the world) and paying the whole lot prematurely, known as Jeonse.
“Since our Sequence A in March of 2022, we’ve got been centered on rising our actual property portfolio, getting buyer suggestions, and constructing the required front- and back-end know-how to really create a greater approach to hire properties in Korea,” Shampine mentioned.
The corporate has invested “closely” in enhancing the client expertise since final yr. The outfit says it has digitized your complete process as a substitute of the standard lengthy, paper-filed leasing course of and launched its personal digital actual property advisor Suzie by integrating synthetic intelligence into its platform. Like a chatbot, Suzie solutions potential residents’ questions on housing or Dongnae’s models in any spoken language.
“From Adam Neumann’s Circulate and firms reminiscent of Mint Home, Zeus Dwelling, and Blueground in America to Asian and European startups like Cove and Habyt — there was nice innovation within the residential rental market around the globe over the previous few years,” Shampine mentioned in an announcement. “Our crew is dedicated to bringing about a greater approach to hire right here in Korea.”
Dongnae’s software is now accessible for obtain on Android and iOS.