Square Yards: The Next-Gen Real Estate Advisor Date:   Tuesday , November 24, 2015 Every NRI wishes to buy a property in India, but are scared to the core when it comes to solve the puzzles attested to it. So was Dheeraj. But with Square Yards, Dheeraj has a different story to tell. He says, \"Had the most wonderful, completely hassle free experience of buying a property in India as a first time NRI investor. All credit goes to team Square Yards\". Echoing similar sentiments, Prashannt Vats explains, \"I have been dealing with five builders and 2-3 different RE broking companies for the last five years. Honestly, I have not seen this kind of pro active approach to customer service\". And the legacy continues for this two-year old real estate aggregator who entered the market with a client-focused investment approach towards real estate, considering factors like risk appetite, liquidity profile, time horizon and price-competitiveness into account. Tanuj Shori and Kanika Gupta were NRI investors and faced burning challenges to invest in Indian real estate industry without their physical presence in the country. They found a dearth of aggregators who can hand-hold the clients throughout their entire transactional portfolio. And the incumbent players in the market failed to build significant scale which could add value throughout the entire process. This jeopardy smelled like an opportunity to the duo and they decided to break the ice and penetrate deep into the market with niche solutions. Today, the company is one of the largest transactional players in the primary residential real estate sector with base in seven countries globally and presence across 15 odd cities in India. \"We found that someone needs to build a scalable business here in the middle part of the value chain (between customers and real estate industry). We would call ourselves as the only end-to-end player in India,\" says Tanuj Shori, CEO & Founder, Square Yards. This involves structuring the product offering, sitting with developers, making sure that right amount of demand is generated and transaction & post-transaction services are offered. While there are players who can compete as one part of the value chain, but there are none who handle post-transactional services and play the role of end-to-end provider. When a client comes to Square Yards, he gets access to an eclectic mix of real estate inventory, can manage the entire transactional portfolio which includes logistic services, significant support on the re-packaging and technician advice, construction update and several more without paying any extra penny. Expansion Strategy In May this year, Square Yards raised its pre-Series-A funding of $6 million from a clutch of unnamed investors. With this round of funding, Tanuj and Kanika aim at a share of 15 percent (which currently is 1.5 percent) of India\'s primary residential real estate market by the end of 2017. Scaling up its operations on multiple distribution platforms, including e-Commerce, was also on the cards. And thus SCAPES was recently introduced in the market as a revolutionary platform for real estate e-Commerce. Just within 19 hours of its launch, the platform was able to generate sale of $40 million worth of real estate. Tanuj says, \"Our portal is unique in itself as it gives out need based recommendations. The clients come with an objective and how do we cater to that in terms of suggesting them particular transactions or projects which could fit their portfolio\". To be more stringent in its strategies and vision, the company acquired Realizing.in, an independent real estate recommendation portal, in June this year. This added the much needed technology bandwidth to achieve larger scale and brought greater transparency to transform the real estate buying process. The scale that Square Yards has built helps the company move around half a billion worth inventory in a year. This has placed the company in the league of the top five biggest developers in India. \"If you look at our pace of growth, then we should be single largest even compared to the biggest developers in India by next year,\" asserts a proud Tanuj. The biggest component that drives Square Yards is technology which is disrupting the way people used to approach real estate. Square Yards is the only company building an omni-distribution platform, a B2B one. The company is also engaged in building a significant aggregation platform on the real estate front, which will include significant distribution capacity by bringing 30-40 percent of the brokers in India on the platform. \"Last month, we were able to bring in 350 transactions. That shows how well we can execute even if we move into new platform. We are working on new technology, user friendly portal which will be going live in next few months,\" says Tanuj. The company recently launched a mobile app – \'Square Connect\' for brokers as well. The Crunches Conversely, the company engaged in providing out-of-the-box solutions is entrapped with the most crucial challenge of acquiring the right talent. Though the company has over 900 best brains, it currently looks beyond the real estate industry to the auxiliary industries like Insurance, to acquire more manpower. \"Most of our principal partners are executive committee members and hold significant decision making power, and when it comes to senior or middle management, the attrition is zero. So I can say that we are not just able to attract talent but retain them as well,\" concludes Tanuj.The company is expanding vigorously in the NRI markets and looks to have its feet firmly rooted in 20 odd countries in the very near future. Panel Key Management: Tanuj Shori, Founder & CEO Tanuj has over 8 years of experience in Capital Markets (Equity research) tracking Asia Pacific and U.S. markets for a range of sectors including commodities, luxury, consumer, agri, infrastructure, and banking. He is also an active investor in various start ups/matured institutions, spanning across sectors such as tech, real estate, education and many more. Kanika Gupta Shori, Founder & COO Kanika has diversified experience across fields like Asset Management, media, event management & real estate. She has been involved in early execution, expansion strategy & setting up the foundation for Square Yards by creating policies, procedures & structure to the then nascent organization. Offices: Gurgaon (Headquarter) and Mumbai Clients: Top developers including Lodha, Prestige, Brigade, Omkar and others