hipages announces strategic investment in Bricks + Agent

Online tradie marketplace hipages has acquired 25 per cent interested in issued share capital of property management platform Bricks + Agent for $6.25M.

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Sourced from existing cash reserves, the transaction provides hipages with exposure to the $21 billion Australian residential and commercial property market.

Bricks + Agent’s property management platform has 360 thousand users, 210 thousand tradies and pipeline of almost 500 thousand properties under management.

According to Roby Sharon-Zipser, CEO and co-founder of hipages, “Bricks + Agent is a great cultural match for hipages and fits perfectly with our strategy to expand into adjacent markets, and the $21bn property management TAM is a huge opportunity for us.”

The companies state that there is a planned integration between the two founder-led platform businesses, with a focus on “unlocking the tradie economy.”

According to Rafael Niesten, Bricks + Agent CEO and co-founder, “We’ve reached a point where the time is right to accelerate our growth plans to capture the huge opportunity we have ahead of us.”

“To be able to leverage the scale and expertise of a founder-led company like hipages which has an entrepreneurial culture like ours is amazing, and we’re really looking forward to working with Roby and the hipages team to continue to change the game in property management.”

Bricks + Agent describes its growth over the last 12 months as “spectacular”, and hipages’ investment provides the business with the capital to support its plans to further accelerate growth.

The business currently has offices in Australia and the UK, but is seeking out domestic and international expansion.

The property management platform’s strategic partnerships include MRI, Property Tree, and PropertyMe, and a blue-chip client base of property management agencies.

Hipages CFO and COO Melissa Fahey is set to join the Bricks and Agent board.