PropertyGuru, Asia's leading property portal group, today announced that it has secured a double digit million Singapore dollar strategic investment from ImmobilienScout24, Europe's top property portal group and a subsidiary of global company Deutsche Telekom. This is one of the biggest online deals in Asia this year, and re-enforces the rapidly emerging online media opportunity in South East Asia.

The investment will further strengthen PropertyGuru's leading market position and support the Company's continued innovation focus, developing services to help its clients find and advertise properties, as well as support further expansion within the region. It will also give PropertyGuru access to additional talent and expert resources, with both parties working closely together to share ideas, best practices and develop new services.

Both companies share similar successes in their home countries and a vision for growth.

PropertyGuru is Asia's leading property portal group with a presence in 9 countries, directly and indirectly via partners. The Company's websites are used by 8.2 million buyers, viewing over 65 million property pages and generating over 200,000 sales enquiries for advertisers - every month. In Singapore, the Company's PropertyGuru and CommercialGuru websites account for 85% of all total page views from property seekers using property portal websites (source: Google AdPlanner), and over double the number of user views as compared to all other competitor's property portal traffic. PropertyGuru currently employs 240 "Gurus" across 6 offices in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. The Company recently reported double revenue and traffic growth over the previous year.

ImmobilienScout24 is Germany's biggest real estate marketplace, attracting more than 7.5 million users per month (unique visitors; source Comscore Media Metrix). Over 260 million virtual real estate tours are taken on this portal, and more than 1.5 million different properties are offered - every month at ImmobilienScout24. The company is based in Berlin and employs over 500 people. ImmobilienScout24 is part of the Scout24 Group, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, a S$94 billion turnover company with 236,000 employees in over 50 countries.

"The Asian region is a dynamic growth market and therefore of significant strategic importance to Scout24 Group. We are pleased to have found a partner in PropertyGuru Group with a strong super-regional position. Together, we will be able to develop the Asian market," said Dr. Martin Enderle, CEO at Scout24 Group. Scout24 Group's international alignment supports the implementation of Deutsche Telekom's corporate strategy by further extending its portfolio in the fast-growing Internet business.

"We see strong economic growth, rising middle classes, urbanisation, developing property markets, as well as an online explosion, taking place throughout Asia. PropertyGuru sits in middle of all of this. Our revenues and traffic doubled over the previous year, and we increased our leadership position in our markets. We welcome ImmobilienScout24 as a strategic investor, which will accelerate our growth and supported additional investment in developing innovative services for our clients," stated Steve Melhuish, CEO and co-founder of PropertyGuru Group.

"This shareholding is part of our internationalization strategy to invest early on in emerging countries with strong growth and to establish the use of the Internet as a central and most effective instrument for seeking and marketing real estate. We have built up Germany's leading real estate marketplace and we are pleased to contribute this know-how to our cooperation with PropertyGuru," emphasised Marc Stilke, CEO at ImmobilienScout24.

Asia's population is expected to grow 70% over the following 20 years (source: Fraunhofer Institute). In addition, ongoing economic development, rising middles classes and declining household sizes is expected to drive urbanisation and rapidly growing property markets across Asia. An increasing number of real estate and new home developments especially in urban areas, are marketed on the internet1. This investment will therefore allow PropertyGuru Group to reach out to a combined population of roughly 340 million people and S$900 million annual real estate advertising market (source: Nielsen and PropertyGuru), which is rapidly moving online.