Wikicasa Announces Funding Round and More Agent Backers, Outlines AI Recruitment Drive

Wikicasa has announced an investment round that will aim to grow the business by 57%, according to the agent-backed real estate portal.

The investment, an extension of  2022's €3M Series A round, is worth an estimated €790,000 and more Italian agency firms join as stakeholders. Among the new stakeholders are Century21, CondivideRE, Gruppo Unica, Italy Sotheby's International Realty, Vendocasa, vogliocasa and ZB Immobiliare.

Pietro Pellizzari, CEO at Wikicasa, said:

"An increasing number of professionals in the sector are choosinge to focus on our project, aware that technology and data are and will always be more decisive in the real estate market.

"The digital evolution has pushed operators in the sector towards new quality standards of transparency, reliability and speed towards the end customers, something that only a systemic and technology-first approach can guarantee." [translated from Italian]

Founded in 2014, Wikicasa owns and operates three portals—Casaclick.it, Commerciali.it and Wikicasa.it—with combined traffic of around 13 million unique users per year (according to Crunchbase). It has developed its own Automated Valuation Model and is now on a mission to further digitize its user experience with artificial intelligence and a suite of integrated services.

Pellizzari said Wikicasa will now embark on a recruitment drive to grow its technology team.

"The digital transition process in Real Estate passes irrevocably towards the use of the technology of the moment, Artificial Intelligence.

"Already integrated into the Photo Rating algorithm on the Wikicasa App, AI is accelerating innovation in the industry. In the future, the potential of this new technology will be exploited for the creation of value-added services able to improve the user experience in the search phase, from an increasing quality of the ads to the suggestion of highly personalized contents.

"AI will play a key role in the future of the sector, and it is impossible to choose this direction without the right human capital. We will hire up to 20 new profiles including developers, UX and UI experts and web designers."  [translated from Italian]

Online Marketplaces spoke to Pellizzari in November 2022. Read the full interview here.