Hosman Press Release
Paris, 26/05/2021
REAL ESTATE ONLINE AGENCY HOSMAN RAISES 6 MILLION EUROS TO ACCELERATE THE REAL ESTATE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE
Paris, 26 May 2020 – Hosman, the French fixed-price real estate online agency, announces €6 million in financing raised by LBO France through its proptech-dedicated NewStone fund, with the support of the Waterstart accelerator fund, UL Invest, and former Axel Springer CEO Andreas Wiele. With this new round of financing, Hosman will stay on its exponential growth track and continue to shake up the model of traditional real estate agencies by offering its fixed-price services throughout France, with its new generation of real estate experts.
Spectacular, innovation-based growth
By combining the best of human expertise with the efficiency of digital tools developed in-house, Hosman has succeeded in becoming the leading online real estate agency. Just three years in, the start-up has surpassed 3,000 properties sold (estimated savings on agency fees of €55m) and has won more than 2% of the market in Paris and the surrounding suburbs. Today, more than 300 customers are turning to Hosman every month to sell their property.
Thanks to their organisation and technology, a Hosman expert can focus on the core business of consulting and negotiating. That’s how they make eight to ten sales each month, compared to a traditional agent’s five to eight. The start-up aims to win 10% of the real estate market by 2024.
Hosman’s success is down to the service quality, innovation, technology and operational excellence that the agency draws on when serving its customers.
In measurable terms, this means very high customer satisfaction (ranked #1 on the Trustpilot customer review platform (4.9/5 stars) in the “real estate agency” and “real estate agents” categories) – in a sector the French are often highly critical of – and growth based on customer referrals.
Funds raised to accelerate its growth throughout France
With this new fundraising, Hosman, which already has a presence in the Greater Paris, Nantes, and Bordeaux regions, can move into France’s other big cities such as Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Nice and Lille, offering its five-star fixed-price service and continuing to innovate to serve sellers and buyers alike. Hosman will strengthen its team by hiring some 100 permanent employees over the next twelve months.
Stanislas de Dinechin, Hosman’s co-founder, says: “At Hosman, we want to release the brakes on property deals and restore the real estate agent’s image by reinventing the profession. Our digital-based structure gives us the efficiency and transparency our experts need to deliver exceptional customer service and focus on consulting and negotiating. Using our new financing, we will ramp up the sector’s digital transformation and keep innovating to serve both buyers and sellers. We have put in two years of intense work to create a solid service in the Greater Paris region, Nantes, and Bordeaux. Now we want to bring the Hosman advantage to as many people in France as we can.”
The fundraising is led by LBO France via NewStone, its impact fund fully dedicated to French proptech, with support from Waterstart, an accelerator fund managed by NCI and now among the most active VC funds in France, and from UL Invest. Another featured investor is Andreas Wiele, former CEO of Axel Springer, a proptech investment leader in Europe, including in Purplebricks (UK), Housell (Spain), Homeday (Germany), Seloger (France), and MeilleursAgents (France). Wiele will lend his broad expertise to Hosman’s co-founders.
“With this second investment from the NewStone fund, we are continuing our deployment by focusing on start-ups in the real estate and construction sectors that are taking a bold approach. We are proud to support this change, and this committed team,” says Stéphanie Casciola, Partner and Head of Real Estate at LBO France.
“Hosman is not the first online agency project that we have looked at, but we were really won over by the strength of this start-up’s business model and its founders. From the outset, the company has been run with real discipline and a very clear vision: to become the benchmark for real estate agencies, based on superior service delivered by agent employees who are “enhanced” by their powerful digital model. We are so pleased to be supporting the company in its nationwide expansion – particularly in NCI’s territories”, says Yves Guiol, Associate Director of NCI.
An eco-friendly, inclusive model
As a socially responsible company, Hosman has launched an offer dedicated to eco-friendly housing and is donating a portion of its revenues to an association that promotes access to housing.
Hosman recently launched the first Green service line for the sale of eco-friendly properties. These services apply to properties with A- and B-rated Energy Performance Certificates (based on indicators of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions) and those that have received the Low Energy Building label. Hosman wants to empower everyone to make their property deals more environmentally responsible by lowering their fixed price by 5% and promoting energy-efficient properties. This approach echoes the government’s drive to commit to the environment with its Climate and Resilience bill, where the lease of poorly-insulated buildings will be prohibited.
In line with its exacting and caring ethos, Hosman has set up a Giveback system that involves donating 0.3% of its revenue to Habitat et Humanisme, a non-profit that promotes housing, inclusion, and the creation of social connections.