QuintoAndar Buys Out Navent Real Estate Portal Assets to Become South American Leader

Brazilian PropTech unicorn QuintoAndar has acquired all of the real estate assets of Argentinan portal operator Navent for an undisclosed sum.

Navent's real estate portal assets include leading brands across much of Latin America and have been built up since the company first expanded from its roots in jobs classifieds into real estate in 2007. The company has some 6 million listings across its network of real estate portals.

Under the terms of the agreement, the Navent team will continue to operate the portals but will have increased access to QuintoAndar's tech resources and capital to create new products to digitize real estate transactions across the region. Commenting on the deal, Navent's CEO and co-founder Nicolas Tejerina said:

“What Navent and QuintoAndar will do together is to bring real estate companies closer to consumer expectations, raising the bar for an experience that unlocks conversion and liquidity,”

Watch: Nicolas Tejerina discusses the Latin American market at the Global Online Marketplaces Summit 2020

Since its foundation by Gabriel Braga and Andre Penha in 2012, QuintoAndar has had great success in digitizing rental transactions in its home city of Sao Paulo and across Brazil in recent years. In 2019 the company started out in the sales market and today counts some 150,000 listings on its platform and operates in 40 cities.

The company is perhaps the best known and most successful of a new breed of Latin American companies using technology to cut through antiquated bureaucracy in the region and offer home-hunters a truly end-to-end experience and landlords a more secure way to rent out their properties.

The move to acquire several market-leading portals across the region will no doubt accelerate the proliferation of QuintoAndar's guarantor and deposit free rentals model in Latin America and comes off the back of several other smaller acquisitions made by the company in 2021.

In March the company announced the purchase of regional real estate portal player Casa Mineira and followed up with the acquisitions of mortgage franchising company ATTA and leasing guarantee platform Velo in August and December respectively.

“This is an important milestone in achieving our mission: to help people live better,” said QuintoAndar’s co-founder and CEO, Gabriel Braga, in a press release. “It is a great satisfaction to leverage the growth of these great partnerships throughout Latin America, creating a ripple effect that, at the end of the day, benefits those seeking their dream home,” added Braga.

The spate of acquisitions being made by QuintoAmdar is being fuelled by some remarkable faith being shown in the company's model by venture capital firms. In May the company raised a $300 million Series E round led by Ribbit Capital at a $4 billion valuation. The extraordinary figure represented a 400% rise on the company's previous valuation for its Series D round back in September 2019 which saw it bag $250M in funding and claim unicorn status.