The Edge Property secures US$4 mil from prominent investors

PETALING JAYA (June 22): Real estate portal The Edge Property has garnered US$4 million (RM17.16 million) funding from various prominent investors, including CIMB Group chairman Datuk Seri Nazir Razak and Malaysian businessman Tan Sri Wan Azmi Wan Hamzah.

Other investors include UOB Group chairman Hsieh Fu Hua, Fushia Investments Pte Ltd (part of the GKGoh family group) and vice-president of Asean Systems Sales at Oracle Peter Goh.

“The fresh capital will allow us to expand our reach and optimise our first-to-market features,” said managing director of The Edge Property Singapore Bernard Tong in a statement today.

The property portal was launched in July 2015 by Malaysian serial entrepreneur Datuk Tong Kooi Ong and has been growing significantly from 50,000 users per month to 600,000 users today across Singapore and Malaysia. Kooi Ong is also the chairman of The Edge Media Group.

In terms of market share, The Edge Property is now second in Singapore and third in Malaysia, based on statistics from SimilarWeb.com, a website that provides market intelligence solutions.

According to Bernard, one of the biggest challenges is matching buyers with the right property, given the sea of choices and there are many difficulties faced by millennials in owning a first home.

“We’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand these obstacles. And we are very excited to be rolling out new products that will address these issues in the coming months.

“There will be tremendous opportunity for The Edge Property as a tech-enabled media company to play a bigger role in this space,” he said.

Bernard added that property transactions topped S$88 billion (RM271.6 billion) last year in Singapore and Malaysia combined, and “technology-enabled transactions have barely scratched the surface”.

The Edge Property director of product and business development Alvin Ong said the property portal has established itself as “a leading source of property information”.

“We want to build on that and provide consumers and businesses a platform to turn that into an advantage, leveraging technologies such as machine learning.

“It’s about creating a tailored experience for specific users groups – from first-time home buyers to seasoned investors and even property developers,” he said.