Tech meets traditional real estate: Welcome Evernest
Our last investment Evernest is ready to take the residential real estate market by storm
Making a new investment is always exciting for us, it means welcoming a team to our family of portfolio companies and it marks the beginning of a long journey together.
It is also an opportunity to prove us right in picking winners, in understanding where value can be created and how industries can be disrupted.
In the case of Evernest it is a strong bet on our part with a large initial ticket to lead the Series A together with prop tech specialist Prudence. It is also an example of how being close to companies for some time pays off and helps us build conviction.
We were first introduced to Evernest by our good friends at Project A as they were leading the seed round. We got to know Christian and Luisa well at that time, even if it was early for us to invest at the seed round, and kept in close contact. We always felt both Christian and Luisa knew exactly what they wanted to build and how they would do it. They both came from the large incumbent Engel & Volkers, and that provided them with unique insight on what was the pain that required a solution. We really like founders who have struggled with a problem for some time and won’t stop until they are able to fix it.
At a personal level Christian and Luisa showed us their passion for building a pan-European company, for dreaming big and for being extremely confident about their plan. And yet, another great trait about these founders was their quest to find a good fit with their investor base. Spain is a market they knew well and a market they wanted to enter into after Germany so we represented a good fit from a geography perspective. However, they were looking also for investors who would understand their vision and who they felt they could connect with. This is quite interesting, sometimes you just know. We developed a great relationship and a sense of mutual trust. We very much need this to happen to make any investment.
In the spirit of sharing and reflecting on our investment process, we would like to summarize our investment rationale:
- The real estate residential transaction market is still very archaic and fragmented. The largest incumbent only owns 3% of the market.
- This is a huge market where technology can extremely streamline the process, reduce costs and significantly improve the whole home transaction experience
- With the right technology and tools a digital player can train new real estate agents who can come into the market and succeed professionally
- Markets across Europe in urban areas behave similarly and the real estate transactions lack digitalization. We see this as a big opportunity at a pan-European level
- We have found a top notch team with the right experience currently enhanced by Stefan who joins at a C-level bringing a wealth of digital experience as Managing Director at Axel Springer Digital
- The team has a very clear strategy and knows which segment of the market to focus on and where it can provide value and differentiation (higher end metro markets, emphasis on brand, empowering the agent with digital tools)
- We invest with great investors like Prudence, Project A and our friends at Bonsai Partners
- We are convinced we can provide value as Evernest expands into Southern Europe
And ultimately it just all clicked, if felt right, I like to call it the “zing” (some of you with younger kids may be able to name the movie…).
Welcome Christian, Luisa, Stefan and the whole Evernest team to our Kibo family. We can’t wait to see you change this market and build a pan-Euro brand!
