epropservices, parent company of The Guild of Property Professionals and Fine & Country, has acquired Starberry, a major provider of estate agency websites and lead generation technology.
Starberry works with a number of estate agency brands, new homes developers and the proptech industry.
Toscafund Asset Management, epropservices’ 85% shareholder, which has invested more than £500m in financial and property technology businesses in the past five years, is backing the transaction.
Founded in 2001 by brothers Ben and Rus Sellers, Starberry will enable extra digital services for its existing customer base, whilst also helping epropservices’ core brands, members and licensees attempt to grow market share.
Starberry will enhance the offering to the networks by providing digital strategy, branding, website design and development, video content, SEO, social media marketing, online advertising, email marketing and content automation.
Co-founder and CEO of Starberry, Ben Sellers, said: “We’re delighted to join forces with the epropservices family. It’s an incredibly exciting time for us as we help the whole property industry to embrace the power of digital.
“Together, we can offer our customers a wealth of new innovations and multichannel services to accelerate growth and take things to a whole new level. As always, our mission is to ‘Create Awesomeness. Deliver results.”
Matthew Siebert, Toscafund and epropservices director, added: “Toscafund is very pleased to be backing epropservices in this, its latest expansion move.
“As a leading investor in the fintech and proptech sectors, we believe that the acquisition of Starberry strengthens the group’s leading position as a digital enabler to the property industry and will provide its clients with a superb suite of products and services.”
Jon Cooke, CEO of epropservices commented: “We are pleased to be working with Ben and Rus, and the whole global Starberry team. It is a great company with an excellent track record of providing digital marketing and leads to agents in the UK and internationally. Our combined vision is to deliver international residential agents a platform providing further lead generation tools and digital solutions.”
Hope they have done research on how and who puts the websites together.
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Quite! ‘Blind leading the blind’ comes to mind.’
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Care to expand?!
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Congratulations Ben and best wishes for your new future! Everyone dreams of founding a new business, growing it and selling it on or partnering with a bigger firm to further extend growth, but not many achieve it. So kudos to you all at Starberry.
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Several people have done the first bit , the second bit and the third only to find it all goes horribly wrong when the bigger firm and their accountants and investors get involved. There is enough wisdom and experience in this deal for that not to happen.
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It looks like a very shrewd move. Well done all.
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