Patrick Grove, the group CEO and co-founder of Southeast Asian internet major Catcha Group, has set up a new proptech venture to capitalize on Malaysia’s rental space. He revealed his new role on his LinkedIn profile today.
Called Instahome, the company was founded by Grove alongside Eric Tan, previously the chief of staff at Catcha and now the new firm’s CEO. Tan was also formerly a founder of Indonesian livestreaming app VIP Live, which was also backed by Catcha.
Grove co-founded online classifieds firm Frontier Digital Ventures – which recently raised US$67 million to fund three acquisitions – and Iflix, which was acquired by Tencent after the exec left its board earlier this year.
Before that, Iflix shut down its offices in various markets such as Singapore and the Middle East. A month prior to the sale, two principals from investment fund Mandala Asset Solutions – which provides advisory services for “distressed assets” – joined Iflix’s board of directors.
Grove is now back in familiar territory. He acts as co-founder and investor at Instahome, bringing with him vast experience in the region’s online property marketplace scene. He co-founded and served as the chairman of iProperty Group, which was acquired by REA Group for US$532 million in 2015.
Instahome was founded in September this year to make the process of renting a home easier, with features such as 3D virtual tours, home visit scheduling, and online maintenance service requests. The company also personally visits and checks all of the properties listed on its website to ensure their legitimacy and to cut down on duplicate listings from different agents.
“Some of our team members have visited the same property twice (some even thrice) with different real estate agents when they were looking for a place to rent, as the exact property address is not disclosed at the point of viewing. It’s a huge waste of time and effort for all parties involved,” said Tan.
According to the statement, it claims that it takes one minute for agents to list their properties on Instahome, only requiring the address, rent price, and a deposit.
“Once a property is listed by our partner agent, we will reject all future requests by other agents to list the same unit,” Tan added. Instahome currently has 100 partner agents across Klang Valley, the CEO revealed.
With its launch in Malaysia, Instahome is set to go up against companies such as PropertyGuru, which recently raised US$220 million from global investment firms TPG and KKR.
But while PropertyGuru charges property agents a fee to list on its platform, Instahome only charges a fee after an agent secures a tenant.
