Purplebricks Founders Set For Surprise Return

Purplebricks’ founders, Michael and Kenny Bruce, are reportedly heading back to the low-fee agency they built, broke, and now appear ready to rebuild.

Sky News has reported that the brothers will rejoin the business as part of a deal with owner Sir Charles Dunstone, with Michael Bruce expected to return as Chief Executive and both founders taking a significant minority stake alongside Freston Ventures.

Anyone who spent the last decade watching UK proptech will know that this is quite the sequel.

Purplebricks launched in 2014 with a simple pitch: sell homes for a fixed fee rather than the traditional commission charged by high street agents. The model, built around self-employed local property experts, heavy brand advertising, and a low-touch operating structure, turned the company into one of Britain’s best-known estate agency disruptors. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2015 and, for a while, looked like the rare portal-adjacent business that might genuinely reset the economics of residential agency.

Then came the wobble. International expansion into Australia and the US burned cash, profitability proved elusive, and investor enthusiasm faded. Michael Bruce stepped down as chief executive in 2019, and Purplebricks’ decline eventually ended in a humbling 2023 sale to Strike for £1. Strike, itself a low-cost agency backed by Dunstone, later ditched its own branding in favour of Purplebricks, a telling admission that the old name still carried more consumer cut-through than the newer challenger.

The Bruce brothers’ post-Purplebricks chapter did not exactly restore the halo. In 2021, they launched Boomin, a portal aimed at shaking up Rightmove with features such as “sneak peek” listings and seller tools. Despite heavyweight ambition, industry noise and some innovative features, it failed to gain enough agent backing or audience scale and entered liquidation in 2022.

In January, Michael Bruce reportedly reached a settlement with Boomin liquidators as the portal's former employees continue to await redundancy pay.