With COVID-19 having driven the real estate market towards digitisation through online inspection and digital auctions, property tech specialists PropTech Group (ASX: PTG) foresee this trend continuing and will invest in the future via acquisitions of Website Blue and Designly.

Currently serving more than 2,400 real estate agencies across Australia and New Zealand, Website Blue is a full-service web design agency that owns and operates tech platform Designly which enables real estate agents to self-manage their digital marketing assets and campaigns. These digital-focused services include eMarketing, signboards, property flyers, DL cards, social media stories, and window cards which are mostly one-click solutions.

“We are delighted to announce Website Blue as the Company’s first acquisition,” said PropTech Group CEO, Joe Hanna.

“Strategically, this acquisition will further strengthen the PropTech Group’s position in Australia and New Zealand and enhance our offer to estate agents in the UK market.”

Once settled, Designly’s functionality will be integrated into PropTech’s VaultRE & MyDesktop CRM solutions which are already used by thousands of real estate agencies around Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Through ease of access, PropTech expects the additional website and marketing services offered through Website Blue and Designly will increase the average revenue per agent and drive product innovation in a rapidly changing sector coming to terms with its digital future.

The acquisitions will be funded by initial payment for $150k in cash and $600k in PTG shares. So long as Website Blue’s software revenue does not fall below historical thresholds, there will be a further $375k payable after 12 months followed by another $375k after 24 months.

The acquisitions come just one day after PropTech reported a 2-year extension in their contract with Ray White Group which is Australia’s largest real estate franchise group for CRM and data services.

“This partnership with the PropTech Group and their CRM product VaultRE is an important step in our group’s technology vision,” said Jason Alford, National Technology Manager for the Ray White Group.

“VaultRE provides an enterprise grade API first platform that allows for an improved flow of data through our network facing One System.”

For the Quarter ending 31 December 2020, PropTech Group reported $2.7m in cash receipts which was an increase of $300k from the September Quarter, and a healthy cash balance of $12.2m enabling the Company to fund their latest acquisition without drawing on debt.