Tepilo, Emoov and Urban.co.uk have agreed a £100 million merger which will create the UK’s second largest online estate agent after Purplebricks.
The business has secured a total of £15m in new funding from existing and new shareholders, as well as an additional investment from Channel 4 which includes an advertising deal, plus further finance from Northern & Shell, Tepilo’s largest shareholder.
TV property star and founder of Tepilo Sarah Beeny says: “I founded Tepilo in 2009 with the intention of putting the customer at the centre of their own property transactions.
“This deal creates a truly powerful partnership of property experts that are focussed on doing right by the customer and improving the home buying, selling and rental process for all. I’m truly delighted with the combination of the Emoov, Tepilo and Urban families to form such a valuable proposition.”
Emoov founder and chief executive Russell Quirk says: “This is a pivotal move in the fast-growing digital sales and lettings sector and is designed to place us as one of the absolute winners in the space.
“We’ve joined together two of the best known fixed fee estate agency businesses to make the ‘Number Two’ contender; along with one of the UK’s most established online lettings companies, and a war-chest of £15m in new cash and media power.
“Strategically, this is a powerful combination and with the very best senior team to deliver on our plan to improve and further dominate the estate agency industry.”
Urban.co.uk founder Adam Male says: “Leading the consolidation of the property sales sector with the acquisition of Tepilo, we’ve also launched a major assault on the world of lettings with the inclusion of Urban, one of the best online lettings platforms around.
“This adds to the waves we have already made in the online sales space with our ‘first to market’ innovative Pay Only When Sold proposition amongst other initiatives, ensuring our customer-first ethos is always met. Together, the three brands have attracted over 60,000 customers to date and we’re excited about increasing this as one united force.
“Being part of a much larger group of property specialists with significant resources to deploy for growth, is truly exciting. I’m proud to be joining the senior team at Emoov to advance our progress as the go-to player in better value home sales and rentals.”
The merged business will be headed by Quirk and led by a management team of chief finance officer Frank McGlade (ex Just Eat; Deutsche), chief marketing officer Lucy Milne (Just Eat; EE), along with chief operating officer Guy Halfhead, former COO of Bookatable.com and chief technical officer and co-founder Ivan Ramirez, former global vice president of product of Groupon.com, plus Adam Male of Urban as director of lettings.
