Propic expands through acquisition, plans capital raise of up to $10m

Mr Catalano said the Property Realm acquisition, financial details of which were not disclosed, made strategic sense, bringing new talent to Propic, accelerating growth and expanding the company’s market footprint.

Both businesses have developed artificial intelligence technology that can automatically manage up to 80 per cent of standard email or text queries made to real estate agents.

Propic focuses on sales while Property Realm specialises in property management.

“Obviously we had ambitions to go into property management because it’s such a valuable part of the market,” Mr Catalano said.

“We could either buy or build, but with the product in play and with the quality of the technology it was a more practical way to move forward – it was just perfectly aligned.”

Jeffery Gray, founder and chief executive of Propic, said Property Realm added product diversity and confirmed that the business aims to raise between $5 million and $10 million from investors by the end of July.

“The reason we bought Realm is they brought some very clever artificial intelligence that went deep into automation of property management,” Mr Gray said.

“It was technology we were planning to build, so by acquiring the business we’re able to accelerate our ability to use Artificial Intelligence to automate really significant parts of what it costs to manage assets in the residential vertical.

“It was a logical acquisition for us, an easy decision.”

Mr Gray said Propic’s annual recurring revenue has doubled since last May, and was now running at between $3 million to $4 million.

“Based on our current run rate we expect it to be $6 million to $10 million by June next year. We are consistently growing over 100 per cent per annum, and that’s the benefit of SAAS [Software as a Service] businesses.”

He said Property Realm brings more than 50 new clients to the business – which now has 2500 users – and adds high-level technical expertise with founder Patrick Hill joining as chief product officer.

It also has a technology development team in India, increasing total Propic staff numbers to about 45, up from 25 a year ago.

“What the Realm acquisition really does is accelerate our forward growth rates because we’ve got more products, a stronger value proposition to automate property management,” Mr Gray said.

“It will absolutely have a material impact over the next 12 months and beyond.”

Market penetration is steadily increasing, Mr Gray said, with its technology used across 84 real estate agency brands including the McGrath, Di Jones, Kay & Burton, and Place networks.

“Then we have quite a few project marketers and developers such as Sekisui House, JWLand, Henley and Doma Group – so quite a diverse customer base.”