{"id":45204,"date":"2023-10-20T15:41:51","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:41:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/sydney-startup-followit-secures-2-million-as-it-readies-to-launch-nationally-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:41:51","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:41:51","slug":"sydney-startup-followit-secures-2-million-as-it-readies-to-launch-nationally-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/sydney-startup-followit-secures-2-million-as-it-readies-to-launch-nationally-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Sydney startup Followit secures $2 million as it readies to launch nationally – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Sydney startup combining social media and real estate has closed a $2 million funding round valuing the company at $20 million as it prepares to roll-out its communications platform nationally.<\/p>\n

Followit, a two-sided platform which provides a Facebook-like real-time feed of listed properties<\/a>, closed the funding round after accepting a series of investments from real estate agencies, who were also serving as beta testers of the service.<\/p>\n

The startup already had funding from family office investor Acorn Managed Investments and Followit co-founder and CEO Tony Moussa says the team initially chose not to take any further funding from agencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut once we got a number of inquiries we realised there was some serious momentum and we decided to start working with these agencies principals and bring them on as investors,\u201d Moussa tells StartupSmart<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s probably the best form of strategic crowdfunding for the business. It will galvanise the business in terms of underwriting its use. The very people using it are also investors.\u201d<\/p>\n

The further funding came from a group of real estate agencies from around Australia of all sizes, Moussa says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a good cross section of the industry and we\u2019re pleased with the support,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

National expansion<\/h3>\n

The funding round valued the company at $20 million, a \u201cvery conservative\u201d number according to the founder.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat valuation is based on where we saw the business getting to in the next 12-18 months having regard to the level of subscriptions and revenue,\u201d Moussa says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe basically discounted the already conservative valuation quite substantially to come up with a number we\u2019ve been using to raise capital.\u201d<\/p>\n

The funding will be used to roll-out the Followit platform nationally in the next month. The service has been beta tested in Sydney\u2019s Northern Beaches as well as Perth and Fremantle, and Moussa says he decided to push the launch forward to cater for the demand.<\/p>\n

The startup will be holding a national webinar open to all real estate agents across the country to mark the launch with the aim of educating this side of the marketplace, before the listings are made available on the platform across the coming weeks.<\/p>\n

While the platform will soon be available everywhere in Australia, Moussa says the startup is still taking a slow approach by staggering which areas they focus their efforts on.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still focused on a region by region basis in terms of getting to minimum density of listings in an area before we then increase our financial commitment to social and digital marketing,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The platform is monetised through making real estate agencies pay a subscription fee to communicate with users, while the service is free for the other side of the market.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny agency can use the platform right now for communications and to communicate in real-time with consumers, whether you\u2019re in Cairns, Adelaide or Hobart,\u201d Moussa says.<\/p>\n

Doing it beta<\/h3>\n

Moussa says the extensive beta testing phase helped Followit improve its user experience and build a service that both sides of the market actually wants to use, providing a good example to other founders.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re trying to a business to market you really need to strategically think about the lowest cost approach to getting the product out there because you only have one go at it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to be constantly asking, \u2018is what I\u2019m doing the right way of doing it?\u2019. In this space things are changing quickly and the challenge is to stay on top of all those developments.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to be running your own race but still be aware of what\u2019s going on around you, on trying to dodge the things that could be challenges and remembering those that could accelerate your success into market.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em> Facebook,<\/em> Twitter,<\/em> LinkedIn<\/em> and<\/em> Soundcloud.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Sydney startup combining social media and real estate has closed a $2 million funding round valuing the company at<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,23,13,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45204"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}