News Corp takes minority stake in PropTiger.com for $ 30 million

New-York based global media and information services company News Corp has acquired a significant minority stake in the parent company of PropTiger.com, a leading online real estate marketing platform in India, for $30 million.

In addition, existing investors, among whom are SAIF Partners, Accel Partners and Horizen Ventures, have agreed to add another $7million to their current investment.

Raju Narisetti, Senior Vice President, Strategy at News Corp, has joined the board of PropTiger.com’s Singapore-based parent company, Elara Technologies Pte Ltd (“Elara”).

Commenting on the development, Dhruv Agarwala, Co-founder of PropTiger.com, said, “We are delighted to have News Corp as our partner. Under the leadership of Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch and Chief Executive Robert Thomson, News Corp brings digital real estate know-how, product experience and content expertise that will help us drive product innovation, customer engagement and traffic growth”.

“Raju’s world class experience in managing digital businesses of The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, and his India expertise as founder and editor of Mint, now India’s second-largest business newspaper, will add significant strength to the board of Elara” said Mr. Agarwala.

PropTiger.com was founded in February 2011 by Agarwala and Kartik Varma, classmates from Harvard Business School, along with Prashan Agarwal, an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology and the Indian School of Business. PropTiger.com has a presence in the major real estate markets in India.