RO Group’s investment arm, RO Capital Partners, has co-led a £1.1m funding round together with the Cass Enterprise Fund in provider of online auction technology to estate agents and auction houses, Bamboo.

Launched in 2015, Bamboo Auctions’ technology allows properties to be sold with immediate and legally binding contracts. Its marketplace makes transactions faster, more certain, and more transparent and customers include Clive Emson, Stags, Bradleys, Hunters and Webbers.

In the last 12 months alone, over 1,000 properties have been sold using Bamboo’s platform, raising more than £200m.

Edward Rowlandson, RO’s Group Managing Director, commented: “We launched RO Capital Partners in April 2021 to invest in active, early stage tech businesses and proptech was a key market for us given our wider real estate experience.

“We are hugely excited by Bamboo, its offering, and its use of technology to innovate the real estate market. Robin and his team have demonstrated that, even though it is still in its early stages, Bamboo has a winning business strategy and great growth potential and we are delighted to lead this round alongside Cass and existing investors.”

Bamboo will use the growth capital to invest further in its online auction technology to ensure it remains the best in the market, as well as introducing new features and partnership integrations while maintaining the company’s high level of customer service.

The right move

The proptech firm has also entered into a partnership with Rightmove, meaning that properties listed by agents through Bamboo’s platform will automatically be tagged as an auction property and will have up to date timer and bid status.

Robin Rathore, Founder and Director, Bamboo Auctions, commented: “The average property transaction takes around 20 weeks, but using our technology, agents can reduce this time to just five weeks. Around 35% of transactions will fall through before reaching completion, but using Bamboo agents can increase transaction certainty to around 99%.

“The speed and certainty that our technology brings to the transaction has given our agent customers an invaluable advantage in the market, not just because it has allowed them the space and time to sell properties during periods of lockdown, but also because it has helped to increase the number of instructions, increase the number of sales, and increase average fees overall.

“Auctions are evolving, and Bamboo is at the centre of this movement.”