South African-based property tech startup, Flow, has secured $4.5 million in a pre-Series A funding round led by Futuregrowth Asset Management with participation from Endeavour Harvest Fund and serial entrepreneur and investor Steven Heilbron. Other participants include initial investors Kalon Venture Partners, Vunani Fintech Fund and Buffet Investments

According to the startup, the funding will be used to drive its international expansion plans.

Flow was founded in 2019 by Daniel Levy and Gil Sperling. The startup goes straight to the source of the largest social platforms in the world – Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn—to match people with properties for rent or sale. Its API platform matches social media users with property by automating rental and seller listings and driving pre-assessed leads straight to estate agents and landlords.

The founders also disclosed that the funding will drive the business’s B2B growth strategy, integrating the power of the Flow social media-driven real estate marketing platform into existing international property portals and CRM platforms. 

“The global property industry faces a massive fragmentation challenge, with millions of agents and thousands of property portals fighting to reach buyers and sellers on digital channels – and they haven’t been able to do so in the way many other verticals have,” said Sperling. 

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“Our aim has always been to enable property industry growth, helping connect buyers and sellers with agents and portals on the platforms where they spend most of their time – on social media. The industry desperately needs to be brought into the 21st century – and the Flow platform and its APIs enable portals to offer fully-automated off-site advertising on amongst others, social media and digital out-of-home boards at scale, to enable agents and portals to easily target and connect with buyers and sellers, using proven best-practice tools.”

Amrish Narrandes, Futuregrowth Asset Management’s head of private equity and venture capital, said his company had keenly followed Flow’s progress in South Africa and Australia and saw its integration into the B2B side of the global property industry as the next natural step in the company’s evolution.

“We share Daniel and Gil’s vision to bring the property industry into the 21st century and know they have the expertise and experience to make it happen – and we’re pleased to be able to be part of a South African company taking bold steps that will bring much-needed change to an essential global industry,” he said.