Common-Floor startup success blog

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A place called home for everyone. CommonFloor’s road to success

The online real estate business has always been at its peak. Ever since its entry into the Indian market, it has only grown popular and will continue to do so. A lot of new players keep on emerging in the online real estate industry but the one which was there right from the start is CommonFloor.

Commonfloor founders - CommonFloor startup story - Verzeo

Founded in 2007 by Vikas Malpani, Sumit Jain, and Lalit Mangal in a small garage, CommonFloor has found a way to increase their business and had got immensely successful.CommonFloor is one of India’s biggest online real estate portal which has assisted lakhs of people to find a perfect home for themselves. It has expanded to over 120 cities and aims at digitalising the real estate market.

How CommonFloor started

It all started when they came to Bangalore in 2007 and couldn’t find the right property. After finding something to their satisfaction, many new problems cropped up which all had their seed in the process of moving to a new house. In this case, it was a sewage problem in the society which wasn’t getting solved because none of the society residents knew each other or had any sort of co-ordination to conclude.

Real estate and finding a new house was a common problem faced by people faced by most of the people back then. Privy to these problems, the trio of Sumit Jain, Lalit Mangal and Vikas Malpani ventured out to find a solution and thus was born CommonFloor.Looking to acquire a relevant skill to launch your own startup? Become fully equipped with all the technical knowledge. Checkout Verzeo’s Internship and certification courses now!

Funds raised

Fundings from various ventures have made CommonFloor rise so quickly in a short period of time. The first funding was raised from Accel partners in 2009 and later on from Tiger Global Management.

CommonFloor raised $7.5 million in 2013 in Series C funding. $10.5 and $30 million was raised in D and E series funding respectively. It also managed to raise $10 million in Series F funding from Google Capital in 2015.


Commonfloor timeline - CommonFloor startup story - Verzeo

CommonFloor’s acquisition by Quikr

The three co-founders of real estate portal CommonFloor have quit the company, a year after it was acquired by online classifieds firm Quikr in January 2016 for $200 million. Founded by Sumit Jain, Vikas Malpani and Lalit Mangal in 2007, CommonFloor has over the past year seen a series of employee layoffs. It is unclear if the three co-founders are headed to separate companies or are looking at a new business opportunity together.

“CommonFloor has been a great addition to our real estate portfolio”, Quikr said in a statement in response to ET’s queries . “After a planned period of transition, the CommonFloor founding team is moving on to their next endeavor and we wish them all the best in their future journey. We will continue to invest in and build QuikrHomes, CommonFloor, and Grabhouse as leading franchises in the Indian online real estate industry.”

Post the acquisition, CommonFloor continued as an individual brand under QuikrHomes. Of the 1,000 employees who worked for CommonFloor at the time of the acquisition, only a handful remain in the company.The CommonFloor office in Bengaluru was also shut down by Quikr to consolidate operations. “We are looking at transitioning out to pursue other interests”, the three co-founders of CommonFloor said in a statement in response to ET’s queries.

Quikr Homes, the real estate vertical of the classifieds site, also acquired Sequoia-backed Grabhouse in November to enter the managed property rental business. The real estate space has seen rapid consolidation after News Corp-backed PropTiger merged with SoftBank-backed Housing-.com in January 2017 in an all-stock deal.

Contributing to the society

In January 2013, CommonFloor launched an offline discussion forum for communities called ‘RightStep’ where they invite experts from different walks of life to talk to about improving the quality of life around homes. The first chapter of the forum was organized in Bangalore brought together government officials, civic and legal experts to answer apartment residents’ queries on formation & management of apartment associations, solid waste management and sewage treatment.

The second chapter took place in Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Pune to sensitize residents about the ‘five elements’ of nature and generate awareness about cell tower radiations, garbage management and air and water pollution.

In the wake of the disastrous floods in Uttarakhand in June 2013, Commonfloor announced ‘Finding Hope a New Home’ initiative to provide financial assistance to build/rebuild homes and provide permanent shelter to the calamity-struck residents of Uttarakhand. The plan was to reach out to the user base of over 4 million monthly visitors and over 60,000 communities across the country appealing for monetary contributions that will then be used to rebuild homes or build new homes across the worst affected parts of the State.

That’s it for now on this chapter of startup stories. If you like reading about startups, then have a look at other startup stories by Verzeo.If you are looking to gain a new skill then do checkout certification courses offered by Verzeo