Days after quitting B2B fashion startup Fashinza, its cofounder Jamil Ahmad has launched a full stack managed real-estate marketplace Marrfa.
Ahmad told Inc42 that Marrfa is a SaaS startup that offers solutions to tackle the trust deficit in the real estate market by addressing four key components:
- Bridging the Gap Between Developer and Consumer: The platform acts as the intermediary connecting developers with discerning buyers, ensuring that the buyer’s requirements are met, and developers can reach their ideal customer base.
- Buyback Assistant: Under this, if a customer encounters issues with a property purchased through Marrfa, the startup will assist in buying the property back. This initiative effectively transfers the risk associated with buying an under-construction project from the buyer.
- End-to-End Financial Solutions: From token money to financing options and complete payouts, Marrfa claims to streamline and simplify all the financial aspects of real estate transactions. The startup partners with financial institutions to offer competitive financing solutions tailored to the unique needs of real estate buyers.
- Ownership Support and Resell Assistance: Marrfa aims to extend assistance to provide ownership support and resell assistance to property owners. This is aimed at fostering long-term relationships with the clients and ensuring that their real estate investments remain a valuable and hassle-free asset.
“By combining these key components, we not only aim to bridge the trust gap in the real estate market but also set a new standard for transparency, financial support, and post-purchase services,” Ahmad said.
On the operational front, he said that the startup will initially operate across India and the UAE. But in the next two years, the startup aims to expand across Singapore and Europe as well.
Currently, the startup is bootstrapped, but will look for funding opportunities once it fits into the market frame, Ahmad added.
Going ahead in 2024, Marrfa aims to build a robust network of agents and launch a discovery platform where foreign investors can get the access of loans from GCC.
Earlier last month, Ahmad stepped down as the cofounder and chief business officer of Fashinza, after a nearly four-year stint.
The start of the new venture also adds to the trend of entrepreneurs and executives quitting their jobs and ventures to launch new startups in the third-largest startup ecosystem in the world. The past few years have seen eminent entrepreneurs like Kunal Shah (Freecharge to CRED), Jitendra Gupta (Citrus Pay to Jupiter) and Anant Goel (Milkbasket to Sorted), among others, raise funds to start their new ventures.
According to industry experts, investors tend to have more confidence in second and third-time founders, making them preferred choices for investment. And there is a simple explanation for this — such entrepreneurs are already well-versed in the industry cycles and the rules of the game.
As far as the realm of the Indian startup ecosystem is concerned, such founders are more likely to succeed, without relying much on vanity metrics like valuations, and mentor new breeds of entrepreneurs entering the domain.
Earlier last week, Gautam Sinha, former chief executive officer of Times Internet, floated a new artificial intelligence (AI) venture SimpleO.ai to simplify contract management for enterprises. SimpleO aims to leverage generative AI to provide a dashboard and manage the risks, obligations, service-level agreements, audits, compliance, and governance requirements associated with the tens of thousands of contracts signed by enterprises.
In the same week, Karthik Gurumurthy, the architect behind Swiggy Instamart who helped scale the vertical from scratch in 2020 to a nearly $1 Bn valuation, secured funding of $3 Mn (around INR 25 Cr) for his new offline retail venture led by Matrix Partners India and a clutch of angel investors.
