The commercial real estate brokerage market in South Korea is fragmented, which makes finding a new office for tenants a challenge due to inaccurate listing information, high brokerage fees and complex paperwork. A Seoul-based proptech startup called Rsquare built a data-driven platform to digitize the process, enabling tenants to compare multiple properties and find an office. The startup has raised a $72 million (85 billion won) Series C round from single backer STIC Investments, JohnWoo Lee, CEO of Rsquare, said in an interview with TechCrunch. The latest funding brings its total raised to approximately $95 million. The Seoul-headquartered company also plans to make further investments in the proptech sector in South Korea and Southeast Asia, including Singapore, Vietnam, and Indonesia.
Founded in 2009, Rsquare launched its office brokerage service in 2015 to help startups find office space and has since expanded its platform to serve small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and larger corporations. In 2016, the company set up a wholly owned subsidiary, Rsquare Design, to provide office interior design services in the wake of $3.8 million Series B funding from Yahoo Japan Capital and SoftBank Ventures Asia. The pandemic has been hard on the commercial real estate market globally. Rsquare, which also grappled with the pandemic, is being recovered quickly as many Korean companies started to reopen their offices from the second half of last year. The company was approached by global strategic investors for M&A, including WeWork, about two years ago, but couldn’t find any synergy with them at the time.