Property tech start up TEAL raises ~Rs 14.8 crores ($2 mn) in pre-series A round led by Omidyar Network India
Property tech start-up TEAL today announced the closing of a Pre-Series A round of Rs 14.8 crore ($2 million) led by Omidyar Network India, with participation from existing investor, Info Edge.
TEAL's core product is a digital, AI-driven solution for property due diligence in India. With more than 50 million addresses covered across 52 cities and 12 states, TEAL has the largest repository of real estate data in the country. The start-up uses cutting-edge Machine Learning algorithms to translate, clean and standardise property records that can facilitate easier decision making with regards to land related transactions. With this fundraise, the Bangalore-based company will work on expanding its data engineering capabilities, increasing geographical coverage and providing more analytics-driven, actionable insights to its customers.
Real estate in India has been plagued with a lack of transparency and reliable information. There is an immense challenge of fragmented property records across widely divergent jurisdictions, legacy formats, and poor data quality. This involves manually-gathering paper records from multiple offices, using intermediaries to vet and arrange the information, and lawyers to interpret it. As a result, India's formal mortgage penetration has remained low compared to its global peers. For individual homebuyers, credible and independent sources of information have been glaringly absent. TEAL is building a comprehensive digital data infrastructure layer for land and property records in India – to enable greater lending against property, refinance, securitization, and title insurance. Its solution provides clean property-level data via APIs in real-time.
“We are building India's first digital title verification system, akin to a CIBIL for property. Just as CIBIL dramatically transformed the process of personal lending in India -- simplifying a series of otherwise manual, messy procedures to do due diligence on an individual before giving a loan -- we are aiming to do the same for the property. We believe deeply in the mission of improving transparency and trust in real estate markets in India and are excited to partner with Omidyar Network India in our journey. We are grateful that Info Edge has continued to express belief in the TEAL team by participating in this round. We continue to value their deep knowledge and experience as we expand our business.“ Kshitij Batra, co-founder, and CEO of TEAL
"TEAL makes the process of property acquisition and mortgages easier and cheaper and improves access to housing finance, especially for those seeking to own affordable housing by creating a single searchable repository for lenders, buyers and insurers. By building a comprehensive digital data platform for land and property records, it is also building critical sector infrastructure which will improve transparency and trust in real estate markets in India. The founding team’s deep passion to build this key infrastructure makes this an exciting investment for us," says Shilpa Kumar, Partner, Omidyar Network India.
TEAL’s existing clients include some of India's largest and most innovative mortgage lenders, such as HDFC, Kotak, and HomeFirst, as well as retail users seeking reliable data on individual properties across the country. It has also published numerous analytical insights on the Indian property market and housing finance.
