Real estate crowdinvesting site Crowdbaron secures funding to aid expansion
Crowdbaron, a Hong Kong-based startup that wants to make it easier for people to make partial investments in real estate, has secured funding to help it grow. The unspecified amount of funding is from Grow VC Group.
As we explained in our profile of the startup earlier this year, Crowdbaron is not a sort of timeshare scheme, so you won’t be staying in the apartments or villas in which you have a stake. This is purely for the profit. So you can spread the risk, Crowdbaron lets you take as little as a one percent stake. It’s aimed at people who want to bolster their personal investment portfolio but who don’t have the means to buy a whole property as a form of investment. Aside from making a profit from rising property prices, Crowdbaron investors can also earn revenues from renting out their properties, which will be unfurnished to save hassle for the crowdfunded landlords.
London is the place to be
Founder Saeed Hassan tells us that Crowdbaron now has 500 registered users who have collectively built up a property portfolio worth an estimated $3 million via the service, all in London properties. That’s a fairly small number and it’s still early days, but Saeed says that next month’s investments by its users will be double the level of the previous month.
Crowdbaron currently has seven real estate investment opportunities, all in mid-range apartments across London. But some are fully funded already, and so the site’s users are awaiting new projects to open up.
Crowdbaronが既に５００ものユーザを抱え、サービスを通じて築き上げられた資産ポートフォリオの予想額は米ドル３００万、それも全てロンドンの資産であると、創業者Saeed Hassan氏は語る。比較的少ない数で、始まったばかりではあるが、Saeed氏は、翌月のユーザ投資額は、前月の２倍になっていると言う。
Crowdbaronでは、現在不動産投資する７つの機会を提供しており、全てロンドンの中級アパートとなっている。しかし、既に１００％投資されている物件もあり、サイトのユーザは新しいプロジェクトの開始を待ち望んでいる。
設立者のSaeed Hassan氏の話によると、Crowdbaronの登録ユーザ数は現在500名で、そのサービスで運用されている不動産ポートフォリオは総計300ドルになると推定されている。そして、その全てがロンドンにある不動産だ。確かにそれほどたいした金額ではないし、まだサービスは始まったばかりだ。しかしSaeed氏はユーザの来月の投資額は先月比の2倍になるだろうと言う。
Crowdbaronは現在のところ投資用の不動産が7つあり、全てがロンドンの中規模アパートだ。しかしいくつかの物件は既に十分の投資がなされているので、Crowdbaronサイトのユーザは新しい計画が登場するのを今や遅しと待ち構えている。
Saeed explains of the site’s user-base:
Approximately half of all visits have been from Hong Kong, though we are now seeing an increase from UK users, as they tend to search for high profile developments in London and land on Crowdbaron. Singapore is another growing market, which isn’t a surprise as many Singaporeans already buy London real estate using traditional methods.
The startup team has received requests from developers in Brazil, the UK, the US, Turkey, India, the Philippines and Australia, and some of these real estate projects might make their way onto the site for crowdinvesting in due course.
Saeed says “the collaboration with GrowVC will allow us to strengthen our service and expand our footprint further into more mature crowdfunding markets in Europe and the US through their networks and experience.”
