Highlights include:

• Overall Prosus revenues increased 20% YoY to $399 million
• OLX's real estate segment continued its healthy revenue increases by 21% to $73 million
• Real estate margins increase to 36%
• Group EBIT improves from a loss of $113m in H1 2024 to a profit of $60m in H1 2025
• Owner Naspers records revenue increased of 23% YoY, to US$3.4 billion.

Prosus, owned by Naspers, operates a highly diversified set of marketplace businesses across horizontals including food, e-commerce, automotive and real estate in Europe, South Africa and Brazil. The company also has a 38% stake in the Dubizzle Group.

Prosus Classifieds Assets

It was a strong set of results for Prosus, highlighting increased profitability, early-stage investment in AI technologies, improved cash flow and cash reserves, and a claim that the business is ready to create "the next $100 billion in value".

Prosus noted how real estate and motors are the fastest-growing segments and the segments with the highest growth potential in the future.

OLX real estate, driven by Otodom in Poland and Property24 in South Africa, generated revenues of $73 million in H1 FY2025, up from $59 million in the same period last year before increasing to $62 million in the second half of the year.

In other words, half-year to half-year revenues increased by 5% from H1 to H2 2024, and 18% from H2 2024 to H1 2025.

Meanwhile, monthly ARPA continues to achieve double-digit growth year over year, at 11% for the half-year. However, this is slightly lower than recent half-year results (17%, 22%, and 12%, respectively, in H1 2022, 2023, and 2024).

Overall OLX listing revenues increased 230% YoY, though this includes non-real estate assets, namely automotive classifieds websites like AutoTrader.

OLX Brazil recently announced that it is introducing a buyer-paid model for its (non-real estate) horizontal marketplace.

OLX -Brazil's marketplace is the leading horizontal in the country, typically charging the vendor of an item a 10% fee for advertising and transacting on the platform.

Instead, the seller's fee has been scrapped, with buyers now paying a 5-7% buyer's fee depending on the product type.

However, other marketplaces in OLX-Brazil's set up will not be affected, including the real estate marketplace Zap Imoveis.

OLX-Brazil piloted the new fee structure earlier this year and said the pricing strategy has led to increased listings and purchases, with the firm now anticipating transaction volumes to increase threefold by the end of 2025.

The company said the new pricing structure gives advantages for buyers, namely that the extra cost for buyers provides services including delivery and insurance, a refund guarantee, and an option to pay in instalments.

Regina Botter, CPO at OLX Brazil, said:

"OLX is the largest company in the category, so we understand that we can be pioneers in taking the next step and even leveraging the secondhand sales sector, in addition to encouraging the circular economy."

OLX Brazil is a joint venture between Prosus and Adevinta.

Highlights include:

• Group revenues increased 5% year-on-year to A$83.4 million (USD 54.75 million) - last twelve months
• Group EBITDA increases 14% to A$7.2 million (USD 4.73 million) - last twelve months
• Group Quarterly revenues drop 3%
• Group Quarterly EBITDA is also down 37.5% after heavy investment in long-term product opportunities
• 360 LATAM grows revenues by 12% to A$55.4 million (USD 36.4 million)
• 360 LATAM EBITDA grows 59% to A$4.7 million (USD 3.1 million)
• Strategic Review underway for "undervalued" 360 LATAM segment

FDV's trading update and notification of its imminent strategic review submitted to the ASX yesterday highlighted the Group's need to unlock more value for 360 LATAM, which now contributes 66% of Group revenues compared to the 36% contribution when the company floated on the ASX in 2016.

Shaun di Gregorio, founder and CEO at FDV, said:

"When we listed FDV on the ASX in 2016, close to two trhids of our revenue came from Asia. Today, two thirds of our revenue is generated in Latin America, but we remain listed on the ASX.

"Having spoken with investors from around the world, it has become clear that to unlock the vlaue of 360 LATAM, we need to be engaging with groups that have proximity to and a deep understanding of the region. The primary focus of this strategic review, therefore, is to explore all options to maximize the vlaue of 360 LATAM for FDV shareholders."

360 LATAM consists of market-leading marketplaces in Latin America, including InfoCasas (Uruguay), Encuentra24 (Panama and Central America), Finacraiz (Colombia) and Yapo (Chile)—all of which FDW wholly owns, making 360 LATAM a regional leader for marketplaces.

FDV said:

The Board believes that FDV's current market valuation does not reflect the combined value of its three operating regions: 360 LATAM, MENA Marketplaces Group (MMG) and FDV Asia.

FDV today announces that the Board has initiated a Strategic Review aimed at maximising vlaue for all FDV shareholders. This review will be focused on unlocking the value of the 360 LATAM business, which may include a change of control, transaction or other liquidity event.

Given the stage of 360 LATAM, and in line with FDV's strategic vision of evalutating monestisation opportunities in shareholders' best interests, the Board believes it is an opportune time to explore strategic options for the business.

FDV is in the final stages of engaging financial and legal advisors to assit in undertaking the Strategic Review alongside manaement and the Board. There is no certainty that the Strategic Review will lead to any particular outcome or transaction and FDV shareholders do not need to take any action in relation to the review at this time.

Perhaps slightly ironically, 360 LATAM revenues fell in Q3 2024, with FDV citing lower transaction volumes for Uruguay's InfoCasas. Revenues for the segment reached A$13.3 million (USD 8.73 million). However, Colombian portal Fincaraiz grew revenues by 22%, while Encuentra24 (2%) recorded flat growth. However, Yapo's revenues fell 16% YoY but improved QoQ after a re-platforming exercise in the first half of the year.

In the MENA region, the MMG segment's revenues of A$2.4 million for the quarter were flat compared to the same period last year, while EBITDA was hit by investment into Avito and reduced demand for advertising and contribution from lower margin products. However, PropertyPro in Nigeria saw EBITDA up by 25% YoY despite flat revenues. FDV wholly owns all its assets in MENA.

Meanwhile, FDV Asia also suffered lower revenues and its EBITDA fell below zero after all its Asia businesses (AutoDeal, Hoppler, LankaPropertyWeb and iMyanmarhouse) recorded revenue shrinkage compared to the same period last year. FDV does not wholly own any of its Asia assets.

Finally, 360 LATAM's MLS-style solution 'Iris' doubled revenues YoY, from A$282,000 in Q3 2023 to A$588,000 in Q3 2024.

Major Zoopla management reshuffle imminent?

UK number two real estate portal Zoopla is set for a major management change imminently, with a source close to the company saying a new-look management team will be in place "soon".

Details of which positions are set for change remain unconfirmed, but the source said CEO Charlie Bryant is likely to depart the business after nearly eight years at Zoopla and Houseful.

Zoopla recently filed a financial statement, revealing that the portal has turned two consecutive years of losses into profitability.

Domain veteran Tony Blamey joins Fotocasa as GM

Former Domain CEO Tony Blamey has joined the Spanish challenger portal Fotocasa as general manager.

Blamey is a veteran of the perennial number-two portal in Australia: during an eight-year stint at Domain, he held several executive roles including Chief Commercial Officer, COO, acting CEO for nine months, and Chief Product and Customer Experience Officer.

Blamey said:

"It is an honour to be able to join the Fotocasa and Habitaclia team at such a crucial time for the real estate sector in Spain.

"Throughout my career I have had the privilege of leading high-performing teams in highly competitive markets, and I look forward to applying these learnings in my new role. I have full confidence in the growth opportunities of the Spanish real estate business and I am sure that, together with the talented team of Fotocasa and Habitaclia, we will continue to innovate and create value for both users and our clients."

He brings a wealth of "second place" experience to Fotocasa, which competes against the international portal giant and domestic market leader Idealista in Spain.

The portal recently released its 'brAIn' chatbot to help answer user questions, and is currently running a television advertising campaign featuring professional footballers at Atlético Madrid Football Club:

VP at OLX Brazil leaves the company

Beatriz Soares has confirmed her departure from OLX-Brazil, where she was VP of Product.

OLX-Brazil, a horizontal marketplace in the country, is a joint venture between Prosus and Adevinta.

Magicbricks promotes from within for CMO

Prasun Kumar has been promoted to CMO at Magicbricks, overseeing the India-based marketplace's marketing, research and editorial functions.

Kumar held the CMO position at Justdial before joining Magicbricks as Head of New Revenue Verticals and Head of Operations, Digital Marketing and Quality Assurance last year.

André Penha co-founded the Brazilian Proptech giant alongside fellow Stanford Gabriel Braga in 2012 and served as the company's CTO until a recent move to manage the firm's operations in Mexico.

He has now stepped down from his position and from the 1st of October will begin a new role as the CEO of IBBX, a company that specializes in wireless transmission technology.

Penha invested in IBBX back in 2019 and revealed in a recent interview with Startups.com.br that the company's founder, Fernando Destro, asked him to take over as CEO back in June.

The interview revealed that Penha effectively stepped away from management duties at QuintoAndar's Mexican operations as early as June this year, dedicating himself to his newborn son.

Before that, he had overseen QuintoAndar's consolidation of its Mexican real estate marketplace assets as the Sao Paulo-based company acquired leading portals Inmuebles24 and Vivanuncios and launched a rental product similar to the one that has brought it so much success domestically. Once those milestones were reached, as Penha told Startups.com.brm, planning for his departure was smooth.

“The succession process went very well. My successors worked without me. And that turned on a light bulb. I decided to take some time for myself,”

Penha, who is a computer engineer and cryptographer by training, will retain his seat on the board of QuintoAndar.

Brazilian AI Assistant Plaza secures $1 million in pre-seed funding

Plaza, a proptech startup in Brazil that has developed an AI assistant for its domestic real estate market, has raised $1 million in pre-seed funding in a round led by Magma Partners and with further participation from Latitud and Urca Angels.

Plaza's AI assistant, 'Maya', eases the workload of real estate agencies including matching brokers to the right clients according from labeling leads, recommending particular properties, conducting credit checks and booking visits, and automated document gathering. The firm says Maya increases lead conversion by up to 60% and has handled more than 30,000 leads.

The firm says it will use the investment to hire staff, increase its marketing spend, and develop new products.

Julio Viana, co-founder and CEO at Plaza, said:

"We created Plaza to make the real estate market as efficient as the financial market. While you can open a bank account in a few clicks, renting or buying a property is still a very bureaucratic and time-consuming experience. We believe renting or buying a property should be a quick experience without long and complex processes."

Plaza was founded in 2022 by Viana and co-founders Vicente Alencar and Pedro de Cicco.

REA restructure includes executive re-hire

REA Group has instigated a corporate reshuffle designed to simplify workflows and streamline efficiencies in the Customer space.

The new Customer Group structure means customer product and services teams will join the sales, marketing and support functions under one umbrella department, starting in October 2024.

As part of the change, REA has rehired Tim Bradley as Executive General Manager for Customer Platforms and Services, rejoining three years after leaving for account software business Xero.

Chief Customer Officer, Kul Singh, will also have added responsibilities as CampaignAgent, Realtair, Agent Services and Agency Marketplace all fall under his leadership.

Singh said:

"We want to ensure we’re supporting our customers with the best tools and services to win their next deal and to run their businesses in the most effective and efficient way.

"Bringing our full customer offering under the same team will help deliver bigger and better results for our customers. With leading tech supporting our innovative tools and products, our combined Customer Group structure will help free customers up to focus on what they do best."

Tim Bradley commented:

"I’m excited to return to REA and bring key learnings from Xero. Our aim is to further enhance the software that makes it easier for our customers to do business. Customers can expect improved API and CRM integration, workflow and cashflow support through Realtair and Campaign Agent, and the right tools and services to win more business with our evolving Agency Marketplace."

360LATAM COO leaves for airline

Jessica Weinerth has left her role as Chief Operating Officer at 360LATAM to become Vice President of Sales and Distribution at Dominican airline Arajet.

Weinerth leaves a gap in the leadership team at 360LATAM, the Latin American segment of Frontier Digital Ventures (FDV) encompassing leading brands such as Encuentra24 (Central America), FincaRaiz (Colombia), Yapo (Chile) and InfoCasas (Uruguay).

Weinerth's journey at FDV started when she joined as CEO of Encuentra24 in 2022 before becoming COO at 360LATAM in December 2023.

Then, not content with market leadership, QuintoAndar used its pricing power to force EasyBroker, one of Mexico's biggest CRM providers, to stop sending its customers' listings to the two portals. Instead, QuintoAndar offered its own CRM services free of charge for agents and brokers.

When OnlineMarketplaces covered that story in July 2023, we assumed the Mexican market was well and truly sewn up—but we keep hearing about new challenger portals in the market.

What makes these businesses think they can succeed in a country where the number one and two portals were bought up by a company worth billions?

Let's have a look...

Understanding the size of the prize

The answer might lie in the potential that these companies see in the Mexican market.

According to one portal CEO we spoke to, there are around 400,000 residential transactions in the Mexican market each year with circa 80,000 agents chasing them.

However, these numbers are hard to pin down as the Mexican real estate industry is not formalised. The Mexican Association of Real Estate Professionals estimates only 15% of its agents are members of a recognized association and the number of transactions is based on credit issuance data. It's estimated that only around 30% of transactions make it onto that spreadsheet for one reason or another.

Then there's the data around house price appreciation (5.3% in 2023), demographic tailwinds, and an underdeveloped mortgage market.

In short, big PropTech companies and their VC backers have been enticed by what the Mexican market could be. For instance, the Colombian PropTech company TuHabi reckons that it has six times the growth potential in Mexico than it does in its home market, and QuintoAndar co-founder André Penha thinks his company can become as big in Mexico as it is in its native Brazil.

While currently, all the major portals are either free-to-list or charge per listing, there is a tempting future potential of moving to a subscription-based model and providing software services to agents.

A brief history of Mexico's real estate portal market

In 2023 Dubai-based Dubizzle Group (known then as EMPG) sold Lamudi.com.mx to the Japanese operator Lifull. A year before that, the European online classifieds operator Adevinta sold off its Mexican real estate portal, Vivanuncios.com.mx to QuintoAndar.

If there is so much potential in the Mexican market, why did they pull out?

In both cases, divesting appears to have been down to circumstances rather than anything that each company didn't like about the Mexican market. Adevinta sold its shareholdings in 12 different countries between 2020 and 2023 before being taken private while Dubizzle co-founder Imran Ali Khan told us in a recent podcast episode that his company simply needed to focus on its core region.

"I remember having a discussion on Mexico and the very next call would be on the Philippines and the next one on Indonesia and it was torturous mentally to offload all of that information and then upload the new information."

Apart from the need for Adevinta and Dubizzle Group to focus their operations, there was also the issue of cash burn; accounts made public during Lifull's takeover of Lamudi give us a pretty clear indication that running a challenger portal in the Mexican market poses a profitability challenge.

In May 2021 Lamudi was given a $60 million investment from Dubizzle Group and told the press that it aimed to climb the ladder from the number three spot (behind Inmuebles24 and Vivanuncios) to number one in three years.

It invested in glossy marketing and began to shift its business model closer to the transaction by targeting the new-build segment using the playbook that Dubizzle Group used so successfully in Pakistan with Zameen.

But by October 2022—18 months later—the two portals ahead of Lamudi had been bought out by QuintoAndar, and Dubizzle Group was looking for a way out and laying off a lot of Lamudi employees.

At the same time, competitors were springing up. Innovative aggregator Monopolio and luxury specialist Beleta appeared in 2021, followed by 'hey, hom!' in 2022.

There was also the interesting acquisition of Propiedades.com. Until 2022, the portal was an also-ran and de-facto fourth-place real estate portal in Mexico. Since being acquired by Colombian PropTech operator TuHabi however, Propiedades has had fresh impetus and started to pick up traffic.

Earlier this summer the former iBuyer Flat.mx announced that it was changing its name to Clau.com following a pivot out of the brokerage and iBuying business and into the business of being a traditional real estate marketplace.

Mexico's real estate portal market players today

Through its subsidiary Navent, the Brazilian PropTech company QuintoAndar runs Inmuebles24 which can be reasonably considered the market-leading real estate portal in Mexico:

QuintoAndar also owns Vivanuncios, a platform that has historically been stronger in smaller cities. Under former owner Adevinta, Vivanuncios was the clear number two in terms of traffic in the Mexican market, but that no longer appears to be the case; a combination of Navent focussing on the Inmuebles24 brand and some investment from its direct rival has seen Vivanuncios drop to number three.

More than one source we spoke to for this article confirmed to us what the chart above would appear to show: Propiedades.com is now the second biggest real estate portal domain in the Mexican market.

The portal claims to be the largest real estate platform in the country with 1.2 million active listings and 270,000 exclusive listings, but in a market rife with duplicates, the reliability of these figures is debatable.

Propiedades is owned by TuHabi which, unlike some others who have dabbled in it, is still a proud iBuyer (a company that buys properties directly to sell them for a profit). The company was founded in 2019 in Bogota by Sebastian Noguera and Bryne McNulty Rojas. In June 2021 it secured $100 million from the likes of Tiger Global and in early 2022 bought Propiedades.com and the end-to-end brokerage service Tu Canton.

Meanwhile, Lamudi's third-place position in the traffic charts may not fully do justice to its parent company's reach in the market.

Lamudi Mexico is owned and operated by Lifull Connect, the overseas division of the Japanese portal operator, Lifull which also owns the Icasas portal and the aggregator brands Mitula, Trovit and Nuroa. It has attempted to amalgamate these sites for its customers recently by launching Proppit, a self-serve platform for customers to buy traffic.

Another potentially significant portal player in the market is the recently launched Clau.com. Founded in 2019 as Flat.mx by Victor Noguera and Bernardo Cordero, the company started as an iBuyer before moving towards being a tech-enabled brokerage.

Under its new Clau.com branding, the business has shifted to focus purely on lead generation as a portal having encountered challenges trying to get into transactional revenue streams.

Bernardo Cordero said:

"We've gotten much more traditional to the advertising model where we're charging upfront on lead generation to the agents both on the buyer and the seller side. And we went that route because we did e-brokerage for a while where we were participating in the transaction. But what we still saw in Mexico was that there were a lot of transactions that we weren't getting paid commissions for.

"It's really, really hard to track actual transactions in the market today. So the ability for us to make sure that we're earning our commission on every single one of the transactions that we participate in, was still very, very complex in Mexico. So for us today, the way we've designed the business is very focused on charging upfront, charging for lead generation."

Thanks to its acquisition of the Intelimétrica business in 2023, Cordero says Clau has better data than anyone in the market. The business also includes a mortgage brokerage service and is open to building "a more complete product" to help ease buyer and seller pain points.

Another player worth keeping an eye on is EasyBroker. As one of the biggest CRM providers in the market, it has been an important intermediary between agents and portals since it was founded by CEO Eric Northam in 2007.

EasyBroker also runs a portal, EasyAviso. Although the company hasn't invested heavily into gaining market share for EasyAviso to date, its position as a profitable, bootstrapped startup means that it can follow any direction it sees potential in.

Finally, Mercado Libre. The Argentinian e-commerce giant used to operate its real estate marketplace under the Metros Cúbicos portal brand which it acquired in 2015.

For a few years, Metros Cúbicos operated as a true challenger with designs on the top spot but since September 2023 its domain has been redirected to Mercado Libre's main Mexico site with the company seemingly reluctant to invest as much in its Mexican real estate marketplace as it has been willing to do in other countries.

Is there room for everyone?

There are estimated to be around six million visitors per month to all Mexican real estate portals—meaning circa 5% of the country's population does any kind of online house shopping.

By comparison, the figure for the U.S. is around 100% and for Spain it's 120%. In theory, the rising tide of house hunters coming online should lift all marketplaces, not just the biggest ones.

Mexico is also more challenger-friendly than other markets when it comes to listing coverage. There aren't many exclusivity listing agreements between vendors and agents in Mexico, so getting a critical mass of listings on one site shouldn't, theoretically, be a challenge.

And there is another factor key that plays into the hands of challenger portals in Mexico—the country's highly regional property market.

Several portals have told us that having great brand penetration in Mexico City doesn't necessarily mean much in the north of the country or lucrative tourist areas, for example.

According to Cordero, that brings opportunity for challengers like Clau.com who are looking to build market share quickly.

"We definitely see a lot of differences there [between different regional markets]. That brings a very, very good opportunity because I think there's not one place where there's a clear winner going forward over the next five, ten years in the markets. So I think there's still a pretty big ocean for us to continue to go after."

As more of the population searches for homes online, the culture will change and the amount of money agents are prepared to spend marketing their properties will increase.

We may see several of these Mexican real estate portal operators grow in the short term. However, for any challenger to gain a meaningful and monetizable market share over time consolidation is likely the way to go.

Propiedades launches tool for homes that match Mexico's federal housing financer's requirements

Propiedades.com, Mexico's second-largest real estate marketplace, has launched a tool designed to find homes that meet the financing amount of the loan from the National Workers' Housing Fund Institute (Infonavit).

For context, Infonavit is the largest mortgage lender in Latin America and the fourth-largest worldwide. It receives 5% of all formal workers' salaries and provides housing-related mortgage products. The institute finances up to 65% of the purchase of units, especially for workers with low and medium incomes.

The new tool uses an artificial intelligence system to manage an inventory of more than 1.2 million properties in Mexico, with the portal's users able to access a credit simulator that allows them to estimate the credit capacity for a loan by Infonavit and other financers.

Juan David Vargas, General Manager of Propiedades.com, said:

"This new tool is another step towards the democratization of credit information, supporting users on their path to home acquisition.

"In the first seven months of 2024, this tool has been used more than 68 thousand times, with 74% of queries related to Infonavit credit applications, reflecting the preference of Mexicans for this public institution to finance the purchase of real estate."

Realestate.com.au launches AI-powered room renovation tool

realestate.com.au today announced that it has bolstered its property owner dashboard experience with a new AI-generated styling tool allowing users to renovate property images digitally.

The room visualisation feature, powered by Roomvo, has been used to restyle over 500,000 property images in the first month since launch, according to the Group.

Jonathan Swift, executive general manager for consumer products at REA Group, said:

"We have leveraged AI and machine learning models for over a decade and more recently our focus has been on experimenting with generative-AI to drive our consumer strategy forward.

"Personalisation underpins the realestate.com.au consumer experience and our AI-generated personalised homepage delivers 7.5 million individual recommendations via hundreds of different layout combinations every day. We know these tailored experiences drive deeper engagement, delivering value to our customers.

"We’re excited to add a room renovation tool for property owners and believe there is a future where this technology has the potential to unlock how Australians connect with their next home, not just their current home. The way consumers search for property on realestate.com.au in five years from now will look very different to today’s experience."

Rightmove launches ad campaign for autumn 'selling season'

UK market leader Rightmove is preparing the launch of its national autumn advertising campaign in advance of what the portal says will be a busy selling season.

Rightmove will be returning to TV, kicking off with an updated version of the brand’s ‘Dunk’ TV ad, with high-profile coverage including during ad breaks for the Paralympics between August 28 and September 8, and additional out-of-home placements across the UK.

Matt Bushby, chief marketing officer at Rightmove, said:

"Alongside our sponsorship of The Voice UK, Rightmove will be present across high-profile TV slots and outdoor nationwide this autumn, designed to capture the attention of potential home-movers considering their next move.

"We've already seen an uptick in moving activity since the first interest rate cut a few weeks ago, and our presence across various high-reaching channels aims to drive even more people to our agents' brands and properties this autumn.”

Rightmove recently announced that it will be the headline sponsor of the popular tv show The Voice.

Jitty expands its AI offering with image search feature

UK-based challenger portal Jitty has launched an image search that allows home buyers and property enthusiasts to find their dream home by describing their ideal living space in their own words.

Jitty's AI-powered portal then analyses photos in property listings to provide highly accurate and relevant results according to the searcher's specific prompt.

Instead of relying on potentially misleading keywords, property browsers can now search based on specific criteria, such as neighbourhood vibes, exterior style, and desired interior features from walk-in showers to standalone baths, fireplaces and exposed wooden beams.

Graham Paterson, CEO at Jitty, said:

"AI is advancing rapidly, and we’re thrilled to use its power to revolutionise the home-buying experience. We started with a basic search tool, then enriched it with deeper insights.

"For example, with existing portals people can search for ‘Four beds, £250k, in Bournemouth.'

"Now, with Jitty they can search for ‘Three bedrooms and a home office, with a driveway and a garden big enough to play football in, in a city by the sea within a two hour commute of London. I need hardwood floors, an ensuite bathroom, and I still want to have Deliveroo.

"Our goal is to help people find their perfect home, whether they’re buying or just browsing."

Huspy expands to Valencia

UAE-based proptech startup Huspy has expanded to Valencia, according to chief of staff Ziad Nassar on a recent podcast appearance.

Huspy was already active in Madrid having launched operations in the Spanish capital earlier this year, and Nassar told the Demystify podcast that Huspy "landed in Valencia" in mid-August.

He said:

"We have already gotten 15 real estate agents to join us, uploaded seven properties for sale, scheduled visits and have just received our first offer for a property sourced by a Huspy real estate agent.

"We’re focusing heavily on expanding our real estate business across the Spanish territory, starting with our initial office in Madrid and our second office in Valencia, and, after that, our aspirations are within the next 12 months to launch at least one more European market and at least one more Middle Eastern market."

Huspy markets itself as a one-stop solution to finding and financing a home, including being the leading mortgage lender in the UAE and promising to deliver mortgages in as little as two weeks as well as offering off-plan buying opportunities as well as selling and renting.

The startup was founded in 2020 and has since raised an undisclosed investment round to build and distribute a housing 'super app' and expand into Europe—with the Valencia launch one step further into the European market.

Lifull collaborates with TeamSpirit to start consulting for improving labour productivity

Japanese marketplace operator Lifull has begun offering consulting services to improve labour productivity in collaboration with TeamSpirit.

TeamSpirit is a SaaS company that provides its proprietary TeamSpirit service, which allows users to obtain attendance data and work logs. The service enables the recording, compilation, and analysis of employee behavioural data - which Lifull believes will allow the company to improve so-called "labour productivity" and human resources issues from all angles.

Lifull said:

By recording and analyzing "work logs," which are detailed data on the hours and content of employees' work, and extracting issues, we improve work efficiency, leading to early and high achievement of goals.

By systematizing this series of activities and providing it to all employees and providing lectures on how to use it, it will become commonplace to use work logs to reflect on daily actions and make daily improvements.

What is unique about LIFULL's efforts is that they aim to achieve sustainable growth for the company by "fostering a culture of continuous improvement," rather than just achieving temporary improvements through measures such as reducing labor costs.

ViewIT launches GenAI-driven virtual assistant

ViewIT has released a generative AI-powered virtual assistant that uses data from Dubai's Land Department (DLD).

ViewIT used prompt engineering to train the assistant to give accurate, detailed responses to users, by either text or voice. The AI assistant can also provide information about amenities and distance comparisons between properties.

The firm says the DLD data is updated weekly using Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet LLM (large language model).

Hamdan Mohammad, Artificial Intelligence developer at Viewit, commented:

"Using prompt engineering to refine the virtual agent was a lot of trial-and-error for a few months.

"Prompt engineering these models requires starting with broad prompts and refining based on AI responses and user feedback while tweaking the temperature (randomness) of the answers.

"Other businesses should start with small datasets, train and iterate with more data, and scale up prompt complexity after lots of user feedback (people ask some weird questions!). Previously, overloading the system from the get-go had been our biggest mistake."

Online Marketplaces spoke to founder Farhad Junaid in October 2023. Read the full interview here.

Highlights include:

• Record half-year revenues of A$35.5 million, up 14% YoY
• Net losses of circa A$1.5 million
• EBITDA of A$1.7m represents a 92% increase YoY (was A$0.9 million in 2023) at a margin of 5%
• 360 LATAM revenue up 16% with EBITDA growth of 60% YoY
• All three regional businesses operating cash flow positive in 1H 2024

FDV is a conglomerate of market-leading classifieds businesses under three umbrella businesses across three continents, making it one of the most international and diversified real estate marketplace operators in the world.

360 LATAM contains Infocasa, Fincaraiz, and Encuentra24, which are all market-leading real estate portals in their respective countries.

The same can be said for names like Avito in Russia, Zameen in Pakistan and LankaPropertyWeb in Sri Lanka, who fall under the MENA Marketplaces Group (MMG) and FDV Asia segments respectively.

In Latin America, revenues grew a respectable 16% compared to the first half of 2023, driven by higher transactions and increased traction for its 'Iris' product—an MLS-type product that connects agents, brokers and developers in several markets on a commission split basis—and the B2B property materials marketplace 'Centrify'.

InfoCasas was the biggest revenue contributor to the Group; A$11.7 million at a YoY increase of 25%.

Fincaraiz grew revenues by 45% to A$6.6 million for the period, the biggest jump in the 360 LATAM segment and the biggest EBITDA jump across the entire business.

In Morocco, Avito's performance was flat with a 4% increase in revenues YoY.

The Asia segment includes the real estate marketplaces Zameen (in which FDV holds a 30% stake), iMyanmarHouse (53%) and LankaPropertyWeb (53%).

Asia recorded overall revenue growth of A$3.3 million in H1 2024, up 22% from 2023, with FDV attributing the bulk of the growth to iMyanmarHouse and LankaPropertyWeb.

Notably, iMyanmarHouse almost doubled its revenues year-on-year to A$1.6 million; its 85% increase was the best individual performance across all business segments.

Zameen's revenues shrank by 16% as the Pakistani market recovered from turbulent market conditions.

FDV also recorded a solid EBITDA of 5% at a strong expansion of 92% YoY, with the Group attributing the figures to organic growth and strategic acquisitions.

360 LATAM, by far the biggest contributor, grew its EBITDA by 60%, while FDV Asia and MMG both recorded slight decreases.

However, operating expenses increased slightly to A$33.7 million, up from A$30.3 million in 2023.

In other news, FDV recently lost its COO Jason Thoe. As far as Online Marketplaces is aware, the search for a new COO continues.