Listen to this articleBelow is our recent interview with Giorgio Tinacci, CEO and Founder at Casavo:
Q: Could you provide our readers with a brief introduction to Casavo?
A: Casavo is the first Real Estate Instant Buyer (iBuyer) in Italy. Born at the end of 2017 with the aim of reducing the time needed to sell a property from 6/7 months (average time to sell in Italian largest cities) to just 30 days, it is capable of delivering purchase offers in 24 hours applying an average 8% discount on the fair market value of a property. So far, Casavo has secured around 120 acquisitions of residential real estate properties in Milan, Rome, Turin and Florence, becoming a pioneer of the model in Italy and probably the largest iBuyer in Europe. Technology and the analysis of large amounts of data is key for Casavo to deliver its service of real-time property valuation and to provide sellers with fast purchase offers in line with the market price.
Q: You’ve recently raised $7.8M in Series A round; could you tell us something more?
A: The Series A we closed with Project A Ventures and other investors represents a very big deal for us. Our business model is very capital intensive due to the fact we get a financial exposure towards real estate properties which are clearly very expensive assets; our goal is to grow at least 400% in 2019 compared to our first year of commercial activity (2018) and we thus need the means to fuel our growth plans. Moreover, we were able to involve one of Europe’s top-tier VC funds as PAV and this is something we are still proud of: not only because we were the fund’s first investment in Italy, but also because of the doubts that the Italian economy still raises when it comes to investments from foreign entities. Despite this, we were able to show the solidity of our business model, and this was confirmed again later when we closed a $30-million debt fundraising with an international debt fund and an Italian bank.
Recommended: Q: How exactly does your platform work?
A: Our digital platform allows anyone to discover the value of a real estate property in Italy. Once the valuation is completed, sellers can decide to ask for an offer from our side; if we are interested in the property we usually run a first inspection (this is not always needed, especially in those markets where we have already built a vast knowledge of the type of properties and their prices) with an investment analyst and the seller receives a non-binding purchase proposal within 24 hours. If the seller agrees with the proposal we run a technical inspection which leads to a binding offer: if this is signed we usually meet at the notary with the other party within 1 week and the owner is provided with 100% of the liquidity.
Q: What are the benefits of using your platform?
A: The Italian (and South-European in general) real estate market is characterized by a long time to sell, uncertainty about the final selling price, opacity in the process, bureaucracy and there are many parties involved which add complexity to one of the people’s most important and stressful decisions. With Casavo, the sellers can agree a time to sell (it is usually as soon as possible, but the seller can decide if he or she wants a slower process), he or she knows immediately the final selling price, it is a transparent process and we take care of everything: technical inspection, documental collection, relationship with the notary and all the other stakeholders involved, including the real estate agency if present. In fact, we extensively partner with RE agencies which get the usual fees and can offer a more reliable and faster process to their customers.
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Q: What can we expect from Casavo in the future?
A: We will keep penetrating the Italian market for sure: we have recently launched the service in Turin and Florence but we will keep expanding with new openings by the end of 2019. We will also focus on the optimization of the cost structure of the company: as we grow, we gain knowledge and the spending power to reduce costs thanks to the volumes of transactions we handle – this will reflect in a benefit for the sellers as we will be able to reduce our average discount. We will also consider internationalization in southern Europe and product expansion as we always thought of Casavo as a digital holistic platform in the residential real estate space.
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