Nested, the estate agent that enables buyers to purchase a new house before selling their old one, has raised £36 million in its latest funding round led by Global Founders Capital.
The funding represents Europe’s largest PropTech investment this year and is the third round of funding secured by Nested within 18 months, bringing the total amount raised to almost £50 million.
Nested, launched in January 2017, is an estate agent that provides home sellers with up to 97% of their property’s value when they need it, and the rest when it sells. The home seller can thus use the funds advanced by Nested to buy their next home before selling their old one.
Nested will market the home, find a buyer and, irrespective of how long the sale takes, the home seller will receive the total sale amount of the home (minus Nested’s fees) upon completion. In doing so, Nested breaks property chains and gives vendors the same market power as cash-buyers.
The news comes as Land Registry data reveals that cash sales account for between 30% and 40% of all property transactions in the UK.
Nested was co-founded by established entrepreneur, Matt Robinson, who previously co-founded the online payments company, GoCardless.
Matt Robinson, CEO of Nested, said, “Anyone who has ever sold a home in the UK knows that the system is broken. The typical sale involves months of stress with 1-in-3 sales falling through. Worse still, home sellers don’t know the only two things that matter – how much they will sell for and when they will receive the money – until after their property is sold.
“With Nested, both of these are guaranteed from day one saving sellers months of stress without needing to compromise on end sale price. We fully anticipate being people’s preferred way to sell their home in the coming years. Based on current demand, we expect to be doing 1% of London home sales in the next few months and 5-10% in the next year.”
Nested typically guarantees between 95% and 97% of the home’s target sale price. Nested use detailed data analysis, both machine and human, to produce its valuations.
With this new funding, Nested plans to continue its aggressive growth, initially within London and in the near future expanding across the UK.
Launched in January 2016, Nested was founded by entrepreneur and former McKinsey consultant Matt Robinson, alongside ex-Songkick CTO Phil Cowans and trained architect James Turford. Previous to Nested, Matt was the co-founder of GoCardless, a direct debit payments startup which has raised more than £40 million and transacts more than £3 billion per year, where he remains on the board.
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