JLL and 1Crowd Invest US$ 500,000 in Zipgrid

Leading international property consultancy JLL India today announced an investment into Zipgrid, India’s fastest-growing technology and knowledge services provider in the community management space. This marks the closure of Zipgrid’s pre Series-A round of US$ 500K. It is also JLL’s third investment by its JLL Technology Ventures platform, a dedicated vertical for making investments into real estate technology firms. The round saw active participation from Zipgrid’s current investors represented by the 1Crowd platform.

“The asset management space is transitioning into a managed services model where technology is starting to play a major role,” says Anuj Nangpal, Head – JLL Technology Ventures. “We aim to partner with technology platforms with flexible architectures that can integrate with best-in-class technology tools. Zipgrid’s tech-enabled property and asset management platform offers a seamless experience for residents, society managements and the property managers. This platform is significantly more matured than any similar options on the market, and we are keen to implement this solution in residential and commercial complexes across the APAC region.”

Over 35 million households reside in organized communities in the top 50 city clusters in India. This platform represents a market opportunity of over US$ 2 bn and is slated to grow aggressively as such households increase to over 100 mn by 2025. Zipgrid’s service model dovetails very favourably with the strict norms enforced by RERA and also addresses a market opportunity that will transcend beyond India into Asia Pacific with the support of the global JLL platform.

The investment will be used to fund upgrading and upscaling of existing technology and operations, and to deploy a range of collective commerce solutions for individual residents as well as residential communities. Zipgrid had earlier raised US$ 250K from 1Crowd that counts a number of C-level professionals as active members on its platform.

Zipgrid, founded in August 2013 by Kunal Gupta and Jaydip Popat, provides tech-driven services to hundreds of housing and commercial communities. Its platform comprises of a full suite of integrated tools and applications that promote:

·         Highly efficient property management

·         Community engagement

·         Financial as well as legal compliance

·         Accounting management

·         Compliance management

·         Builder-to-society transition services

·         Vendor management

·         Billing and payment solutions, and

·         Records digitization.

Jaydip Popat, Co-founder – Zipgrid says, “We are delighted to partner JLL, a global real estate leader in Property and Asset management services. We intend to combine our technology and management solutions with JLL’s network and understanding of this space to improve living experiences in communities while bringing significant economic benefits to residents. We are also thankful to 1Crowd for their continued support and participation in this round. It is a significant vote of confidence for us.”

Natasha Kothari, Co-founder – 1Crowd says, “1Crowd’s start-up ecosystem supports companies like Zipgrid that are using technology and knowledge to bring efficiency and convenience to all. Zipgrid is on a very strong growth trajectory and has made significant progress since the time we made our investment last year. In this heavily fragmented market, Zipgrid has managed to provide systemic efficiency to the housing and commercial communities.”