Bricks + Agent’s $8m takeover of rival proptech Inspection Manager

A property management platform founded by two primary school friends from Perth has acquired rival platform Inspection Manager, growing its market share to 12 per cent.

A property management start-up has acquired one of its main rivals in a deal worth $8m, which will see the platform now servicing around 50 per cent of the investment properties in Australia.

Bricks + Agent, a property start-up founded in Sydney in 2016 by two primary school friends from Perth, has acquired Inspection Manager, in a deal which will see its market share increase significantly.

Co-founder Rafael Niesten said the deal had been a long time coming and that Bricks + Agent had been eyeing maintenance and inspection products for some time.

“We always had aspirations to do inspections, that was something we always wanted to do. We know that maintenance and inspections obviously go hand-in-hand,” he said.

“When property managers are out doing inspections, they often find a large number of maintenance items and without any integration it can be really difficult.”

Bricks + Agent will now have a portfolio with over 2500 agencies, 1.2 million properties and 18,000 property managers. It also has 5.1 million registered property owners and tenants, as well as 60,000 tradespeople using the platform.

It has also landed some major property clients including JLL, Meriton and Little Real Estate.

Inspection Manager, founded 13 years ago, has completed more than over 13 million inspections.

Bricks + Agent is backed by Hipages Group, which has invested $10m in the business to date. Hipages has three million homeowners listed on its platform, as well as over 31,000 tradespeople and over 11 million jobs.

Mr Niesten said prior to the acquisition, Bricks & Agent had tried to develop its own inspection product, but it wasn’t enough to compete with Inspection Manager.

“In actual fact, we had an inspection solution that we built out, but it just wasn’t to the same level as what Inspection Manager had. It’s something we had been looking out for a while, but we were waiting for the right time,” he said.

Carrie Vernon, co-founder at Inspection Manger, said the proptech industry had seen quite a few businesses consolidate in recent months, and the deal with Bricks + Agent just made sense.

“There is a lot of consolidation under way in proptech, and it made logical sense to combine forces and allow our vision to be taken to the next level,” she said.

“We see this as a fast way to deliver our strategy by growing in the real estate and social housing space while continuing to enhance and grow the users’ experience across these critical property management elements.”

The play is Bricks & Agent’s second acquisition this year, following on from a deal it struck with its direct competitor Maintenance Manager in January.

That acquisition was conducted as a no-cash deal.