Real Estate management start-up Azuro raises seed round from Mumbai Angels Network, Kae Capital & White Unicorn Ventures

Real Estate management start-up Azuro raises seed round from Kae Capital,Mumbai Angels &White Unicorn Ventures Mumbai, September 2016: Early-stage investment firm Kae Capital, along with Mumbai Angels and White Unicorn Ventures has announced today an undisclosed amount in real estate management start-up Azuro. Azuro will be utilizing the funds to expand its operations across Mumbai, and invest further in building the technology Azuro, - a Mumbai based start-up is a residential real estate management company founded by five IIT Bombay alumni. NRIs holding real estate properties in India, multi - home owners today have to deal with multiple brokers, contractors and tenants while managing their properties. This takes a lot of time and effort and also trusting each and every stakeholder becomes a key issue. Seeing this demand, Azuro is solving this issue by managing across the life cycle of the property. The firm finds tenants, takes care of maintenance and tenant issues, does periodic inspection and furnishes as required. In effect, the owner only has to liaise with Azuro. The venture is using technology with standardized processes to ensure transparency at each step and information on the go for everyone. Ayush Agrawal, Co-founder, Azuro said “Multi-home owners especially NRIs today rely on their relatives back home to take care of the property and because of these hassles, many end up keeping their properties unused. These properties only serve the purpose of capital appreciation, leading to more than 5 lakh vacant properties as per 2011 census in Mumbai alone. Imagine how the housing scenario would change if Mumbai has 5 lakh more homes available to live?” Not only the hassle involved but also the information asymmetry is a big problem the industry is facing today, for e.g. How does an owner discover the fair rental rate of the property? Well currently, he gets the answer from a friend who lives nearby or relies on the quote from a roadside broker. “The answer to the problem is technology, which can provide the answer using real-time data points and a combination of several other parameters, ”added Ayush. Abhishek Bhatewara, Member, Mumbai Angels said “The Azuro team have identified this opportunity that obviously is a big pain point in the real estate sector, for both, home owners as well as tenants. The rental services industry is dominated by unorganized players and there is a large potential to increase the service levels and also increase the transparency – there by creating trust and over a period creating a brand. The team is young, but have first-hand experience of the pain point. They have a clear vision and are hands-on and hard working. The market is very large, and the team is well positioned to capture a big share.” On the team, Sasha Mirchandani, MD and founder of Kae Capital said “Property rental is a huge market in India, which is crippled with inefficiencies. The Azuro team saw these inefficiencies first hand while trying to rent an apartment for themselves and set out to simplify the process. We think a full stack solution like Azuro is a model very well suited to crack this massive problem.  We are happy to partner with the Azuro team in their journey to figure out the solution for the same.” Rohit Chokhani, Prinicipal Founder, White Unicorn Ventures opined “We have seen that across the globe professionally managed home yield better rental value, and create value for all stakeholders. Renting is cheaper than buying, in fact an individual renting a house for 30 years will still be paying only one third of the actual ownership cost in the current interest rate structure. With RERA being a law, professional asset management companies will play a key role in the growing residential rental business. The Indian real estate market is expected to touch US$ 180 billion by 2020. The housing sector alone contributes 5-6 per cent to the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It will be indeed a good benefit for all. And hence we felt that making an investment in Azuro was the right choice.” Azuro has been rapidly building a property portfolio in suburban Mumbai and is growing across geographies swiftly. The real estate sector is one of the most globally recognised sectors. In India, real estate is the second largest employer after agriculture and is slated to grow at 30 per cent over the next decade.This sector is also expected to incur more non-resident Indian (NRI) investments in both the short term and the long term. About Azuro Azuro (www.azuro.in) is founded by a team of IIT Bombay alumni – Ayush Agrawal, Altaf Ahmad, Sudhanshu Mishra, Vishal Chauthmal and Sushant Kumar. Ayush has experience in investment banking, while Altaf worked as a management consultant for 2 years. Sudhanshu and Vishal started up a venture prior to Azuro and Sushant has experience in product management. About Mumbai Angels Venture Mentors: Mumbai Angels (www.mumbaiangels.com) is one of India’s largest angel networks with 250+ members across three active chapters - Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. Their portfolio comprises of 80+ ventures across multiple sectors focused primarily on seed and early stage companies.