Global Real Estate Portal MIPARO Goes Crowdfunding

MIPARO, a residential real estate home listing portal for emerging markets, announced today that they will be raising capital on the U.K.-based full-service crowdfunding platform FundedByMe. MIPARO is hoping to raise $150,000 to $500,000. The campaign will begin on March 1, 2018 and run through the middle of April.

This is MIPARO’s third funding round. Initially in 2016, the company received seed-round funding of $400,000 from West Island Invest AB. This was followed by a recent investment in January 2018 by the Swedish-based early-stage fund Milky Way Cap which received a 2% equity stake with a $160,000 investment.

Real estate is one of the last frontiers for venture capital and early stage investments, according to Forbes, a leading U.S. business publication. In 2016, over $2.6 billion was invested in real estate tech startups through 235 deals worldwide, according to CB Insights, a leading business research firm.

According the Founder and CEO of MIPARO, Mikael Westoo, “FundedByMe is offering an opportunity for small investors to capitalize on real estate tech startups. Large VC’s and private equity firms are pouring money into the category because they see it as one of the last major business categories not profoundly impacted by tech.” Westoo further stated, “We are one of two companies currently targeting emerging markets. In most developing countries, home listing platforms are scattered among dozens of individual broker websites. There are very few which aggregate and centralize listings on a single platform”.

Investors in the industrialized, developed world have seen one or two online home listing platforms dominating the market. This trend, many believe, will soon occur in emerging markets. Furthermore, as globalization of the world’s economies continues, international home buying and selling will become more common, some analysts have predicted.

About FundedByMe

FundedByMe is one of the only full-service crowdfunding platforms offering capital through equity crowdfunding. Over the past several years, 470 companies, from 25 different countries have successfully raised capital exceeding $63 million. FunderByMe has a growing base of over 100,000 investors in 200 countries around to world. They are headquartered in Europe.

About Miparo

Founded in 2016 in Sweden, MIPARO provides real estate agents and brokers in developing markets with a global platform to showcase their client’s homes, providing unparalleled international exposure. Home buyers can easily find properties in the respective markets because MIPARO consolidates many of them on a single platform.

As done in Europe, MIPARO charges agents a small fee to post their properties on their platform. North American listing portals don’t charge agents to post their listings; instead they charge individual agents to advertise their services.

Listings are then easily uploaded to MIPARO’s website for millions of international and local home buyers to see. All listings are translated into the target audience’s own language for no extra charge.

MIPARO will mediate conversations between buyers and sellers if they don’t speak the same language. Importantly, MIPARO requires a rigorous two-step verification process to make sure listings are real so buyers don’t fall victim to thieves and scam artists who populate many home search platforms abroad.