In an interaction with Srirang Athalye, Director, Aurum PropTech Ltd

In the future, Aurum PropTech’s in-house products will see multiple partner companies coming together to deliver a composite solution to a common set of customers; elucidates Srirang Athalye, Director, Aurum PropTech Ltd

What is your outlook on the Indian real estate market over the medium to long term? Can you highlight the opportunities that you are focussing on for bringing digital transformation into a complete value chain of the real estate sector?  

The consumption of real estate has been an integral part of civilisational progress. With every step of civilisation, real estate has moved up in the hierarchy of needs from being physiological protection shelters to the safety of caves to love & belonging in individual homes with the advent of cultivation. Moving forward, real estate became an esteemed asset and symbol of wealth. Millennials bordering Gen Z today want real estate (RE) as an experience rather than an asset.  

India stands out among the large economies today, having clocked a quicker and sharper-than-envisaged recovery from the pandemic. It is set to be among the fastest-growing economies this fiscal as domestic demand has also spurred growth. However, soaring commodity prices have elevated input costs while global shortages caused delays in some sectors like automotive. Further, rising interest rates can cause hiccups for the RE sector in the short run. Meanwhile, the Indian real estate sector is pegged to reach USD 1 trillion in market size by 2030, up from USD 200 billion in 2021. It is expected to contribute more than 10 per cent to the country’s GDP in 2030. The rapid economic expansion, favourable demographics, increasing urbanisation, rising per capita income, rising living standards, etc are likely to propel the growth of the RE sector. Moreover, the 5G rollouts will further accelerate the digital transformation in all sectors, paving way for PropTech to accelerate. Hence, the medium to long-term outlook remains encouraging for real estate as well as PropTech.   

Can you elucidate your current product offerings?   

India’s major structural reforms i.e. demonetisation, RERA & GST along with the effective rollout of 4G networks and the introduction of 5G, increased internet user base, as well as advanced technological interventions, are helping in bringing transparency to the Indian real estate sector. Aurum believes that the PropTech segment will have a 10 per cent market share of the real estate industry, making it to be a USD 100 billion segment.  

Aurum’s PropTech ecosystem is designed to boost data-driven efficiency in real estate enterprises and enhance the consumer experience through products in four business segments:

-Invest & finance data science, analytical tools, and platforms to enable smart investment decisions for institutional as well as retail investors,   

-Enterprise efficiency product suites to help increase the efficiency of cost, time, and effort in real estate construction,   

-Customer experience solutions that leverage technology to engage customer experiences at the touch of a button,   

-Connected living tech solutions that enhance lifestyle experience in real estate spaces and asset management products.
 

Aurum Proptech’s consolidated revenue from operations for Q1YF23 came in at Rs 146.4 million, up by 78.9 per cent on a QoQ basis. What factors have helped you outperform?  

We adopted a hybrid strategy, organic as well as inorganic for our growth. In the past quarter, the consolidation of revenues from its acquisitions has resulted in increased revenues.  

Aurum Proptech has been on an inorganic growth drive for the past one year that includes six acquisitions with a varied controlling stake at a cumulative consideration of Rs 233 crore. Can you elucidate the salient synergistic benefits you expect to accrue from some of these acquisitions?    

Our philosophy for investments and/or acquisitions in PropTech is aimed at the potential to build an ecosystem of tech-enabled ventures across the four identified focus areas. These ventures have already started collaborating on strategic, operational, and most importantly, tech-focussed areas. Steered under a quarterly programme called Aurum Entrepreneur’s Forum, specific initiatives around growth, branding, technology & centralised support solutions are underway with tangible benefits of the ecosystem, already visible to Aurum PropTech and its partner companies.  

For example, Aurum PropTech’s capabilities provide centralised technology & infrastructure support to all partner companies thereby, bringing in best practices, cost efficiencies, and velocity of execution. K2V2’s CRM is being of tremendous value to Aurum PropTech and Integrow. The ecosystem is providing faster access to common target stakeholders ranging from customers, suppliers & even human resources, enabling faster expansion and penetration in new geographies. 

In the future, Aurum PropTech’s in-house products will see multiple partner companies coming together to deliver a composite solution to a common set of customers.  

Currently, what are your top three strategic priorities?  

Aurum Proptech’s vision is to cater to every Indian’s property-related requirements by aiding on every step of the consumption journey. While doing so, we aim to build a PropTech ecosystem that can enable Aurum PropTech to deliver a profitable turnover with market leadership for each of our products and partner companies in their respective segments. While we do this, a non-negotiable aspect of our growth story will be our governance structure, benchmarked with the highest standards in the corporate world. To sum it up, strategic priorities bring in increased efficiencies and transparency through technology in the real estate sector, growth aiming to a leadership position with a firm sight on profitability, along with cash flow management on a platform of best governance, risk & compliance (GRC) practices.  

Can you share your earnings outlook for the next few quarters?  

As a standard practice, we do not give an earnings outlook for future periods. However, as discussed earlier, we aspire to reach a quarterly revenue of Rs 50 crore by March 2023.