Germany is the second-largest PropTech market by funding in Europe (behind the United Kingdom) with a total investment of €1.2 billion. With many new trends in the industry, it is even more interesting to find out which companies were able to create a sustainable business model and have successfully grown over time.
In the ranking of the top 5 German PropTech companies 2023, we rely on up-to-date funding data from Crunchbase.com and identified the businesses that have received the most amount in recent years.
Top 5 German PropTech Companies 2023
- McMakler
- HomeToGo
- Exporo
- Homeday
- Lamudi
German PropTech Trends 2023
Similar to other European and global PropTech markets, trends in Germany include visualization, crowd-funding and crowd-investing of real estate. Even more significant are the topics of sustainable building solutions and smart technologies. Overall, the digitization of the real estate industry can be seen in many aspects but most importantly in managing, buying and selling properties.
Top 5 German PropTech Companies 2023
1 | McMakler
“McMakler” is the PropTech company in Germany that has received the most amount of funding in recent years. The digital real estate agent has raised around $215 million with their latest venture round adding €50 million in January 2022. McMakler was founded by Felix Jahn, Hanno Heintzenberg and Lukas Pieczonka in 2015 and has its headquarter in Berlin. The revenue of the business amounts to €53 million in 2020 with a growth of more than 70% compared to the previous year.
According to a survey performed by YouGov, McMakler is the best known real estate agent in Germany with a brand awareness of 41%. They are also operating in Austria and France. Their business model focuses on marketing residential and commercial properties with the help of data analysis and automation in order to deliver their service quicker and more efficiently. McMakler is hiring their own, certified real estate agents that stay in contact with the customers and are supported by the company’s employees and artificial intelligence.
In addition to the brokerage service, the company is also offering financing solutions to potential home-buyers. With McMakler’s strong growth in recent years and the latest financing round, the business is currently valued at approximately €800 million.
2 | HomeToGo
In second place of the top 5 German PropTech companies in 2023 is “HomeToGo”. They received around $177 million in funding and are a publicly listed company at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange since September 2021. Nils Regge, Patrick Andrae and Wolfgang Heigl founded the company in 2014. Just as McMakler, the business is also located in the German capital, Berlin.
HomeToGo claims to offer the largest selection of vacation rentals with a total of more than 15 million properties on their platform. The business is able to achieve these numbers by cooperating with over 31 thousand partners around the world including Airbnb, Booking.com and Tripadvisor. Their platform is very easy to use and has an extensive search function that can filter by amenities, type of property, location, price and many more options. Additionally, HomeToGo owns and operates 23 different local apps and websites that offer holiday rentals. These include Tripping.com, CASAMUNDO and Wimdu.
At the time of their IPO in 2021, HomeToGo has been valued at €1.2 billion.
3 | Exporo
“Exporo” is the third-largest PropTech company ranked by funding with a total of €75 million. The real estate crowdfunding and -investing platform from Hamburg has been founded by Björn Maronde, Julian Oertzen, Simon Brunke and Tim Buetecke in 2014. The latest financing round has contributed €16m in January 2021.
Exporo is a platform that allows people to invest in a fraction of a building by tokenizing the asset with the use of blockchain technology. Therefore, real estate has become more liquid and easier to trade between multiple parties. This also allows people to invest with a smaller budget and reduces the entry barrier. Currently, the platform has two main products that customers can invest in: existing properties (“Bestand”) and new developments that require financing (“Finanzierung”). The first one allows people to profit from regular rental income, as well as, the increasing value of the property. The second option helps developers to fund their projects and rewards investors with yield. After the project has been completed, the money will be paid back to the customer.
In 2019, the company made €19 million in revenue and had 119 projects running with a total value of €251.4 million.
4 | Homeday
The digital real estate agent “Homeday” is in place four of the top 5 German PropTech companies in 2023. Their funding amounts to $71 million, with $40 million contributed by Axel Springer and PurpleBricks in June 2020. The company was founded by Steffen Wicker, Dmitri Uvarovski and Philipp Reichle in 2015.
Homeday’s platform is efficiently matching people that want to sell their homes with local real estate agents that are qualified by the company. Currently, there are more than 200 self-employed partner agents that are working for them. With help of Homeday’s employees, the team is providing support for the complete transaction process of a property including the valuation, marketing, listing on relevant websites, legal processes and the handling of documents to complete the sale. The platform also includes their own listings for sale, as well as a dashboard that keeps customers informed on the status of their property.
In 2021, Homeday was able to increase its brokerage volume by 44% with a total transaction amount of €1.5 billion. Furthermore, they received the highest customer satisfaction ratings in Germany for their type of business and also increased the brand awareness to 38% (within the market of German homeowners).
5 | Lamudi
“Lamudi” is the fifth biggest PropTech company in Germany by funding with a total of around $56 million. The real estate marketplace with a focus on emerging markets has been created in 2013 by Jacqueline van den Ende, Kian Moini and Paul Philipp Hermann. Like most other companies in the ranking except Exporo, they are located in Berlin. The company is also a part of Rocket Internet, a well-known venture builder from Germany.
Their real estate platform was available in 34 countries at its peak and provides a secure and easy way to sell and buy properties. Lamudi’s focus lies on emerging markets including Asia, Africa and Latin America. The marketplace offers residential and commercial properties for sale and rent. In addition to the online version of their platform, they have also launched a mobile app that allows more customers to use the service and list their homes.
In April and May 2020, Lamudi’s business in the Middle East, Pakistan, Mexico, Indonesia and the Philippines has been acquired by the Emerging Markets Property Group (EMPG) for an undisclosed sum. The Dubai-based property company mentioned that the purchase will benefit partners and expand their operation into new markets.
Conclusion
The German PropTech market is shaped by digital real estate agents and listing marketplaces. All of the top 5 German PropTech companies in 2023 utilize some sort of platform business model, which is similar to UK’s and India’s markets. In comparison to other European countries, Germany receives the second-largest amount of funding after the UK.
If you want to learn more about PropTech, smart building technologies, smart cities and sustainability in the real estate industry, feel free to take a look at our other articles.
