The South African firm Flow seeks to transform the relationships between real estate agents, developers, brokers, and their clientele.
Using its APIs, Flow integrates with the websites of real estate companies and property developers and automates their social media marketing on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. The pre-Series A fundraising round for the proptech marketing platform totals $4.5 million.
With the money, Flow plans to expand to additional social media sites like TikTok and LinkedIn as well as other ad channels like digital out-of-home billboards.
Gil Sperling and Daniel Levy, co-founders and co-CEOs of Flow, will use the investment to push the company’s B2B development plan and incorporate Flow’s social media-driven real estate marketing platform into current global property portals and CRM platforms.
Sperling and Levy created the app Flow in 2018 as a way to encourage tenants to pay their rent on time. But before Flow, both of the founders created Popimedia, an adtech and performance marketing firm that served some of the top brands around the globe as the biggest buyer of Facebook media inventory in Africa.
Even though they sold the company to the multinational communications company Publicis in 2015, they used some of the expertise they obtained from managing Popimedia to transform Flow into its existing business model three years later.
To contact both buyers and sellers on digital platforms, millions of agents and thousands of property portals around the world employ a highly fragmented method. And it’s clear that the proptech sector has fallen behind other businesses in using social media to drive sales.
The founders of Flow seek to interact with customers on digital platforms through real estate agencies and property developers that they were unable to contact with their previous firm.
Also read, SA Proptech Startup Flow leverages Social Platforms to solve Africa’s Archaic Property Industry
In addition to collaborating with real estate websites to gather postings and automatically construct ads on Facebook, Instagram, and other digital channels, the proptech business automates the marketing for real estate brokers for developers.
According to Flow, its proptech marketing platform enhances both the experiences of purchasers and sellers of real estate as well as the revenue for agents.
Levy contrasts this by pointing out that the firm earns money from these agents through its SaaS platform and by taking a portion of its marketing expenditures. He noted that over the past year, revenue has increased by 20% month over month.
The days of having to physically look for an agent in order to purchase a house are long gone, as are the days when people had to travel from one location to another in pursuit of a home.
These days, sellers can effortlessly advertise their properties on social media with the aid of API from numerous businesses like Flow, and buyers can easily and stress-free engage with them.
Also read, 5 Leading Trends in the PropTech Industry for 2023
Flow now has over 300 customers using its platform, each of which is a real estate firm or developer with an average of 15 to 20 smaller agents working out of each office.
Flow is therefore utilized by almost 6,000 agents throughout South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Mauritius, and Australia, to put it more generally.
To enter Europe (France, Germany, Belgium, and the U.K.), where it will compete against more established companies, Flow is in talks with partners, primarily property portals and CRM platforms.
The co-founders believe that proptech startup will succeed in Europe thanks to its technology and attention to design as well as its larger market reach.
With a $2 million investment, Futuregrowth Asset Management headed the startup pre-Series A round. Additionally, current investors Kalon Venture Partners, Vunani Fintech Fund, and Buffet Investments increased their investments. Participants included Endeavor Harvest Fund and serial entrepreneur Steven Heilbron.
Featured Image: Daniel Levy, Co-Founder and Co-CEO (left), Gil Sperling, Co-Founder and Co-CEO (Right) of Flow
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