PriceHubble raises a USD 34 million Series B round to strengthen its leadership position in Europe and accelerate its international expansion

19.07.2021 08:30, Isabelle Mitchell

PriceHubble AG, the fast-growing global proptech founded in Switzerland in 2016, successfully completed its Series B round and raised USD 34 million in new funding. Digital+ Partners led the investment round with significant investments from Latitude Ventures, TX Ventures, and selected business angels, including Dr. Martin Enderle. The round was met with a strong demand from the existing investor base, among them Swiss Life and btov/Helvetia Venture Fund. To learn more about PriceHubble’s fundraising success, the company’s plans for the future, and the expectations for this year’s TOP 100 Swiss Startup Award, we talked to PriceHubble CEO Julien Schillewaert. 

The PriceHubble leadership team (from left to right): Dr. Stefan Heitmann (co-founder and president of the board of directors), Markus Stadler (co-founder and COO), and Julien Schillewaert (CEO)

PriceHubble, the globally leading AI analytics and data company for the residential estate industry, completed its Series B investment round, raising USD 34 million in new funding. Founded by Dr. Stefan Heitmann and Markus Stadler in Zurich in 2016, PriceHubble has experienced a fast and successful development and is now active in nine markets: Switzerland, France, Germany, Austria, Japan, Netherlands, Belgium, Czech Republic, and Slovakia. Its rapidly growing customer base in Europe and Asia consists of more than 800 companies and has tripled over the last twelve months. PriceHubble currently employs over 130 specialists.

“The entire PriceHubble-team is extremely proud to announce this successful Series B funding. It is a major milestone toward accomplishing our vision of becoming the undisputed leader in data-driven digital solutions for real estate and finance in Europe and Asia,” stated Julien Schillewaert, CEO of PriceHubble.

PriceHubble is working to radically improve the customer experience across the real estate and mortgage value chain by developing data-led and machine learning-based real estate products focusing on valuations, predictive analytics, and actionable insights, all embedded in a state-of-the-art visualization. PriceHubble’s products and tools provide a new level of market transparency and enable PriceHubble’s B2B customer base to leverage the power of big data analytics for them and their end customers, ultimately achieving a higher level of transparency and smarter real estate decisions.

The financing round was strongly oversubscribed and was led by Digital+ Partners, the leading European Growth Equity Investor focused on international B2B software investments. Furthermore, Latitude Ventures, the Series B+ sister fund of LocalGlobe, the London based VC with a very successful multi-year growth track in supporting high growth startups, and TX Ventures from Zurich, TX Group AG’s venture arm, joined the round among high ranking business angels, including Dr. Martin Enderle, Chairman of Delivery Hero and former CEO of Scout24 Group, and strong support from existing investors, such as Swiss Life and btov/Helvetia Venture Fund.

PriceHubble will use the funds from this investment for its growth and expansion strategy and to further extensively innovate in data science resources. Dr. Stefan Heitmann, Founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors of PriceHubble AG, added: “With this new capital, PriceHubble can further accelerate the global market expansion and continue expanding our technology leadership in data-driven solutions for the real estate and finance markets. It is one of the largest B-rounds in the European proptech scene, and I would like to thank both our existing and new investors for their trust and strong commitment.”

“By successfully operating in nine international markets, we believe that PriceHubble is very well positioned to become the international category leader in residential real estate analytics,” stated Patrick Beitel, Co-Founding Partner and Managing Director at Digital+ Partners. ”In combining an excellent team, a mature technology-driven organization, and best-in-class UX, PriceHubble is ideally equipped to accelerate further growth opportunities, attract further top talent, and scale up the go-to-market organization internationally.”

To learn more about PriceHubble’s fundraising success and the company’s plans for the future, we talked to PriceHubble CEO Julien Schillewaert. 

Julien, PriceHubble raised USD 34 million in a Series B financing round. How will the money help you achieve your mission to bring transparency into real estate markets?
First and foremost, this round will allow us to strengthen our leadership position in data-driven digital solutions for the real estate and finance industries in Europe. And with already nine countries opened (Switzerland, France, Germany, Austria, Japan, the Netherlands, Belgium, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia) and an amazing team of more than 130 specialists, we’re already well underway. On the one hand, we’ll invest in our team. Since innovation is at the core of what we do, we’ll keep strengthening our data, product, and tech teams to keep bringing new game-changing solutions for our customers. And on the other hand, this round will also help us to accelerate our international expansion, and we’ll enter more markets in the next few months.

What are the next milestones you want to achieve? 
A new product launch is always an important milestone, and we have a few on the roadmap. At the time, we’ll very soon reach the symbolic milestone of 1,000 B2B customers trusting us with our digital solutions, and it’s extremely rewarding to see the impact on our customers. And finally, as previously mentioned, we’ll enter new markets soon, among which we can find UK, Italy, or Spain.

COVID-19 continues to change how and where we work and live. Being able to make smart real estate decisions based on critical performance metrics seems to be more important than ever before. How has COVID-19 influenced your business? 
Any crisis, and COVID-19 is no exception, increases the uncertainty in the market, and gaining access to the right level of transparency and insights is indeed crucial. In addition, the multiple lockdowns accelerated the digitalization efforts of many players in real estate, from realtors to banks. And thanks to these two trends,  the challenges brought by COVID-19 could not stop our strong growth, and we’ve had a very successful year: We tripled our customer base in Europe and Asia to more than 800 companies in the last twelve months and doubled the size of our team.

How has the pandemic affected the fundraising round? 
Fundraising is also about finding the right partners for the next phase of growth of a company—and not being able to meet investors in person didn’t make it easier. But like everyone, we’ve rapidly adjusted and were able to carry out the B round as planned and on schedule. We were overwhelmed by the response, and the round was oversubscribed, with new investors joining the team and very strong support from our existing investors. We are obviously proud and, more importantly, very excited about what’s ahead of us! 

Your investors include Swiss-based TX Ventures but also international investors, such as Digital+ Partners and Latitude Ventures. Why did you and your team decide to work with these investors? 
We’ve been in touch with Digital+ Partners, Latitude Ventures, and TX Ventures for quite a while now, and they have been extremely engaged and supportive, even before the fundraising process. We were looking for B2B SaaS growth investors, and we really felt they were the right partners to bring PriceHubble to the next level. They also complement each other by covering PriceHubble’s existing and future markets.

You have been among the TOP 100 Swiss Startups for the last three years. How has the ranking influenced the fundraising round?
We are always pleased to be included in the Top 100—and this year is no exception! We are excited to see how it turns out this year. Being nominated for an award is an honor for every startup but also a chance to gain more visibility toward potential investors, customers, or new team members, especially for early-stage startups.

Is there anything else you want to add? 
I would like to take this opportunity to thank again our existing investors for their support and trust over the years, our new investors for joining the PriceHubble adventure, and our customers for trusting us every day when making real estate decisions. Last but not least, I would also like to thank our entire team for working tirelessly every day to always bring the most advanced data-driven digital solutions to our customers. Thank you very much!


The PriceHubble team