Brazilian End to End Apartment Marketplace Loft Secures Additional Funding as Value Skyrockets

The Sao Paulo based end-to-end apartments marketplace Loft last month secured a historic $425 million Series D funding round from the likes of Fifth Wall, Andreessen Horowitz and QED at a $2.2 billion valuation. On top of this funding, the company has this week announced an extra $100m in funding on top of its Series D  which valued the Brazilian startup at a staggering $2.9 billion (a rise of $700 million in a matter of weeks).

Participants in the company's Series D-2 round include Baillie Gifford, Trasadia, Flight Deck and Caffeinated with company co-CEO Mate Pencz telling TechCrunch that the Loft had "overwhelming investor interest" despite "a very, very oversubscribed main round". Pencz also said that a reason for the enormous valuation jump was that Baillie Gifford has a relatively high minimum check size as an institution which meant that Loft's valuation had to go up to accommodate them as investors.

Loft's end-to-end e-commerce like housing solution has seen some tremendous growth recently with listings volumes reportedly having grown by a multiple of 10-15 in 2020 alone. The platform currently has some 13,000 listings across Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro and counts around 30,000 brokers as customers. As for transactions, Pencz told TechCrunch: “We’re now growing into the many tens of thousands, and soon hundreds of thousands, of active listings.”

Pencz also said that the funding would be used to expand Loft's operations outside of its two current city markets in Brazil and eventually into other Latin American countries with possible M&A opportunities to be looked at as well.

Founded in 2018, Loft is among a cohort of Latin American end-to-end property marketplaces making a real impact on the way property is transacted in the region. As well as non-traditional marketplace sites in Brazil such as QuintoAndar and Aocubo, companies such as La Haus and Aptuno in Colombia and Homie in Mexico are all thriving by breaking down traditional transaction barriers in the region.