DThe real estate agent Homeday from Berlin has a new owner. The media company Axel Springer, which already had a stake in the start-up founded in 2015, is taking over the real estate portal completely. This was confirmed by the media company to the online magazine „Gründerszene“, which first reported it.
The amount of the purchase price is not known. In June 2020, Axel Springer and the British real estate portal Purplebricks jointly invested 40 million euros in the Proptech start-up.
Homeday initially started from Cologne with the intention of assisting private sellers of residential properties in finding a real estate agent. Based on inputs such as building details, location, and value, Homeday would recommend a suitable agent to the sellers. Additionally, the platform provided support to real estate agents in digitizing their services and organizing the sales processes.
Due to Corona and the sharing of commissions, the market has been set in motion, as Homeday co-founder Steffen Wicker expressed in a conversation with F.A.Z. in November 2021. However, even back then, the caution in the buyer’s market must have had a lasting impact on Homeday’s business. The recently published annual financial statement shows an increased gross profit of 22.5 million euros for 2021, but at the same time, Homeday incurred significant losses. Employees had to be laid off in the previous year, and further job cuts are now being considered once again.
The trio of founders is stepping back.
After being acquired by Axel Springer, Homeday is now entering the next chapter, wrote co-founder Wicker on Thursday on Linkedin. „It will be an exciting time where we as founders want to support, but no longer be in the lead.“ He and the other co-founders Philipp Reichle and Dmitri Uvarovski are stepping back from the management. According to Gründerszene, Robert Wagner, who is currently working as a manager at the E-Commerce company Social Chain until February 2023, will take over the leadership soon.
Before Homeday, the founding trio was already active together: In 2007, they launched the music streaming service Simfy. As international competitors entered the German market, Simfy gradually lost its significance. In spring 2015, the company was liquidated.