European iBuyer Casavo Arrives in Portugal

The Milan-based iBuyer Casavo has opened for business in Portugal with plans to recruit 20 local employees and spend €100 million purchasing properties.

Launched in Italy launched by Giorgio Tinacci in 2017, Casavo is among Europe's largest iBuyers and has raised over €400m to date in equity and debt from the likes of Goldman Sachs, Greenoaks and Exor seeds. The company operates in five Italian cities and expanded to Madrid in early 2020, where it competes with the likes of Finland based Kodit.io, and to Barcelona in 2021.

Speaking about his company's latest expansion over the border, Giorgio Tinacci, CEO & Founder of Casavo said:

“The Portuguese residential market is apt for Casavo as people still prefer to buy houses rather than rent. Similar to the other Southern European markets, the residential market here is fragmented, complex, and offline. The pandemic has accelerated a change in customer behaviour towards digital adoption. Entering the Portuguese market allows us to continue our expansion, strengthening our proposition and keeping investing in innovation.”

Casavo operates along the same lines as the likes of Opendoor and Offerpad in the United States using technology to assess and make offers on properties before renovating them and selling them on through partnerships with local real estate agents and via its own listings portal.  The value proposition for consumers in these countries is that Casavo guarantees a quick sale with little bureaucracy and swift payment in markets where none of these can usually be guaranteed.