Habi buys Okol to strengthen its operation in Mexico

Brynne McNulty Rojas and Sebastián Noguera, founders of Habi. Photo: Habi.

Habi, the proptech founded in Colombia in 2019 and  already the largest used home buyer, has completed in Mexico the acquisition of Okol, owner of the Propiedades.com and TuCantón portals, which are the real estate portals with the most listed properties in Mexico and one of the largest used home buyers, respectively.

With these additions, Habi is projecting that their transactions will grow up to 10 times to reach US$100MM  this year.

Since its inception in 2019, the company founded by Brynne McNulty Rojas and Sebastián Noguera, has raised US$115MM from investors, backed by Softbank, Inspired Capital, and Tiger Global.

The parties did not disclose the value of the transaction, but Noguera, who serves as Habi’s president, considers that it reflects the solid business model they have built.

“Now we are an important ally for real estate companies; we sell most of our inventory through brokers and the vision we have is to continue promoting these alliances to strengthen all the players in the sector”, he commented.

The technology firm developed its own algorithms to value real estate. After acquiring the properties, they remodel and when it is ready, they put them up for sale at competitive prices.

Propiedades.com and TuCantón have a commercial presence in Mexico City and ten other states: State of Mexico, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Nuevo León, Puebla, Querétaro, Quintana Roo, San Luis Potosí, Veracruz and Yucatán.

Habi’s plan is to turn Propiedades.com into the largest real estate portal in Mexico, for which it will have to compete with other proptechS that have been gaining strength, such as LaHaus.

Since landing in Mexico in the last quarter of 2021, Habi says they have created 130 new jobs. With the acquisitions, they will have a team of almost 400 employees.

To address these new challenges, Habi also announced the hiring of Marcos Kantt as its new CFO, who in a 20-year career has worked in investment banking and capital markets, accompanying financial institutions and real estate companies in mergers and acquisitions and capital raise situations.