Funding and Investment Roundup: Habi Acquires Pulppo, REA Group, OneDome, Dono

This week's funding and investment roundup begins with a major acquisition in Latin America...

Latin America: Colombian iBuyer Habi acquires Pulppo

Habi, the Colombian iBuying unicorn, has announced the acquisition of the Mexico-based tech-enabled brokerage Pulppo.

Founded in 2022, Pulppo operates a B2B model working with real estate agencies to boost sales, improve productivity, and strengthen their brand, without imposing exclusivity agreements or altering their operational methods. Pulppo brings a network of 100 real estate agencies and 800 brokers, and will maintain its operations as an independent brand and platform.

Habi, a traditional iBuyer with significant backing from several investors, has outlined its intentions to make investments in growth, product expansion, advances in artificial intelligence and talent development by the year 2030, with ambitions to take up to 20% market share in the attractive Mexican market, where Pulppo already operates, in addition to the markets where it is already present.

Pulppo has already brokered more than USD 215M in real estate operations, working with a network of +100 real estate companies and 800 brokers.

Habi previously acquired Okol, the holding company behind propiedades.com and tucanton.com, in 2022.

Oceania: REA Group takes majority stake in the brokerage Simplicity

REA Group has agreed to acquire an initial 70 per cent interest in commercial finance brokerage, Simplicity Loans & Advisory (Simplicity), with the deal expected to close by the second quarter of the year. REA Group is expected to complete a total acquisition by the end of 2029.

Simplicity provides finance solutions to businesses and developers across several industries, including construction, mining and industrial, retail, medical, and specialised industries.

Anthony Waldron, REA Group chief executive officer of financial services and Mortgage Choice, said:

"The volume of commercial loans settled by brokers in Australia has increased significantly in recent years. By extending beyond residential lending into the fast-growing commercial lending market, we will accelerate our commercial finance strategy while adding new capabilities and revenue streams.

"Simplicity is a great business and has achieved impressive organic growth. I’m looking forward to working closely with the Simplicity team as we continue to innovate our financial services offering and deliver more choice and flexibility for our brokers and their clients.”

REA Group already operates the brokerage Mortgage Choice, and Simplicity is expected to add synergies to REA's current offering.

Waldron added:

"Simplicity is a great business and has achieved impressive organic growth. We see significant opportunities for integration and future growth by connecting Simplicity with Mortgage Choice and more broadly across the group.

“We believe the proposed acquisition will create exciting opportunities for our Mortgage Choice brokers, with many of their clients already small and medium business owners or commercial property investors. It will strengthen our ability to offer tailored services across both residential and commercial property loans, supporting more Australians with the funding solutions they need."

United Kingdom: OneDome announces $24.4 million in pre-Series C investment

The British proptech OneDome is close to raising £18 million (USD 24.4 million) in Series C investment as it pursues further growth.

OneDome is an end-to-end real estate platform that provides a step-by-step 'handholding' service that promises faster and cheaper transactions than if buyers and sellers used a traditional agent. Offerings include support for buying and selling a property, and finding and securing a mortgage.

OneDome offers its HomeBuyer service, which combines mortgage advice, conveyancing and transaction management for a fixed fee of £999.

Babek Ismayil, founder and CEO at OneDome, said:

"Buying a home is still one of the most stressful and disjointed financial transactions people go through. We started OneDome to fix that by bringing everything under one roof and turning homebuying into a simple, transparent retail experience. This funding allows us to scale what is already a profitable and fast-growing platform, while continuing to challenge how homes are bought and financed in the UK."

North America: Dono raises $6.5 million seed round to scale its AI-powered property records platform

Dono, an AI-powered property records platform that turns fragmented county records into usable ownership data, has raised $6.5 million in seed funding in a round led by Link Ventures with
participation from Lool VC and Alumni Ventures.

Dono turns fragmented county records into usable ownership data through software delivered via both a UI and an API, backed by expert human verification, and currently serving more than 700 counties across the United States.

According to the company's website, Dono can extract and index nearly two thousand records per hour with 100% accuracy.

The seed funding will be used to accelerate geographic expansion by building a county-level infrastructure market by market, covering circa 50% of U.S. states by population by the end of 2026. Funds will also be used to deepen the company’s technology by increasing automation and efficiency for customers without compromising accuracy.

Tali Gross, CEO of Dono, said:

“The gap isn’t just technology. Plenty of tools exist. But they aren’t built on modern infrastructure. Our mission is to fundamentally improve the home closing experience by giving everyone involved—title professionals, lenders, buyers, servicers—the certainty they need without the friction that’s been accepted as ‘just how it works’ for decades.

"Accuracy isn't negotiable in this industry. Organizations face an impossible tradeoff: accuracy, speed, or cost…pick one, maybe two. We eliminate that choice.”

Dono has raised in excess of $10 million.