Australian arm of CrowdProperty raises $1.5m from local property investors

Following in the footsteps of its UK parent company, CrowdProperty Australia has closed a $1.5m seed round as it scales up post-launch.

CrowdProperty Australia launched in May and has already assessed over $120m in property development projects with three funded to date.

Its fresh funding comes from property developer Oscar Done and early-stage investors Alex Retzlaff and Jeff Lewis, former VP of technology at TripAdvisor.

CrowdProperty Australia CEO and co-founder David Ingram called the round “the smoothest capital raise I’ve managed for a start-up.”

“We had a lot of interest from family offices and wealth managers who saw value in our direct origination of quality residential developments, and from experienced property developers who appreciate the pain points we are helping to solve in their world. Then we had serial tech entrepreneurs who saw our potential to scale the solution.”

The round was reportedly oversubscribed by 20 per cent, with strong interest in CrowdProperty’s plan to replicate its success in Australia.

Back in the UK, CrowdProperty raised a £1.8m crowdfunding round in August on Seedrs, and to date has assessed over £4.5bn worth of property development projects in the last seven years and has lent £145m across those projects.

Earlier this year, CrowdProperty UK raised a £300m five-year credit line from an unnamed asset manager to push ahead with its property lending goals.

“Our focus is taking action to further step change the businesses in order to realise our potential quicker in our mission to transform property development finance,” said UK CEO Mike Bristow.

Just last week, CrowdProperty UK appointed a new chief financial officer, Steve Morgan, from Weatherbys Bank.