Conveyancing proptech specialist firm Smoove has announced an increase in revenue as talks with a rival about a possible takeover continue.

Company revenues rose 7% to £21 million from £19 million in the 12 months to the end of March.

News of this income rise comes as Smoove is discussing with rival Australian firm PEXA about a cash buyout.

Smoove also said another party was considering investing without the option of a buyout, but later withdrew.

The company, formerly known as ULS Technology, is the platform used by thousands of estate agents.

It also announced that a year-end cash balance of around £10m (2022: £20m), which it said reflects “ongoing planned investment” and the return of £3.65m to shareholders in January.

Conveyancing completions grew 44% to 53,224 (2022: 36,965). This is made up of transactional completions of 18,382 (2022: 21,837), and remortgage completions of 34,842 (2022: 15,128).

And conveyancing instructions rose 5% to 69,976 (2022: 66,394).

Last year, the company launched a digital onboarding platform called Smoove Start, and it said 30 branches across 18 firms were signed up.

Challenges

Jesper With-Fogstrup, CEO of Smoove (main picture), says: “While last year was not without its challenges, we repositioned where necessary while the successful launch of new products added to our flexibility and resilience.

“The upswing during Q4 FY23 was testament to the strength of our model as we successfully grew the number of instructions and completions,” he adds.

We remain extremely excited by the growth opportunity.”

“We remain extremely excited by the growth opportunity and confirm that our outlook for FY24 is in line with the board’s expectations.”

The Smoove brand with a pink logo and hellosmoove.com website were created a year ago when the firm decided a new look was needed.