Grace Ashiru
The South African company Flow aims to change the interactions between real estate brokers, developers, and clients.
The websites of real estate agencies and property developers can be integrated with Flow’s APIs to automate their social media marketing on sites like Facebook and Instagram. The proptech marketing platform has raised $4.5 million in pre-Series A funding.
With the funding, Flow intends to increase its presence on more social media platforms, such as LinkedIn and TikTok, as well as on other ad channels, such as digital out-of-home billboards.
The funding will be used by Flow’s co-founders and co-CEOs, Gil Sperling and Daniel Levy, to further the business-to-business development plan and integrate Flow’s social media-driven real estate marketing platform into existing international property websites and CRM platforms.
Sperling and Levy developed the Flow app in 2018 to motivate tenants to make on-time rent payments. But before Flow, the co-founders of Popimedia, an adtech and performance marketing company that was the biggest buyer of Facebook media inventory in Africa, served some of the world’s most well-known brands.
Despite having sold the business to the global communications giant Publicis in 2015, they utilized some of the knowledge they gained from running Popimedia to restructure Flow into its current business model three years later.
Millions of agents and hundreds of property portals use a highly fragmented approach to reach both buyers and sellers on digital platforms. Furthermore, it is obvious that the proptech industry lags behind other industries in the use of social media to boost sales.
Through real estate agencies and property developers that they were unable to reach with their prior company, the founders of Flow hope to engage with customers on digital platforms.
The proptech company automates the marketing for real estate brokers for developers in addition to working with real estate websites to aggregate postings and automatically create ads for Facebook, Instagram, and other digital channels.
According to Flow, its proptech marketing platform improves both the real estate buying and selling experiences as well as agent earnings.
In contrast, Levy notes that the company makes money from these agents through its SaaS platform and by taking a cut of its marketing expenses. He mentioned that month over month revenue growth over the previous year was 20%.
The day when individuals had to move from one place to another in search of a property is long gone, as are the days when you had to physically look for an agent.
These days, with the help of API from multiple companies like Flow, sellers can simply advertise their properties on social media, and purchasers can do so without difficulty or stress.
With an average of 15 to 20 smaller agents operating out of each office, Flow today has over 300 clients using its platform, all of which are real estate companies or developers.
To put it more broadly, approximately 6,000 agents use Flow across South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Mauritius, and Australia.
Flow is in talks with partners, especially property portals and CRM systems, to penetrate Europe (France, Germany, Belgium, and the U.K.), where it will compete against more established businesses.
The co-founders are certain that the proptech startup will be successful in Europe because of its cutting-edge technology, careful attention to design, and wider market reach.
Futuregrowth Asset Management led the firm pre-Series A round with a $2 million investment. Additionally, existing investors Buffet Investments, Kalon Venture Partners, and Vunani Fintech Fund upped their contributions. Endeavor Harvest Fund and serial entrepreneur Steven Heilbron were among the participants.
