Purplebricks signals imminent move into Europe with extra £125m from German publisher

German publisher and property portal owner Axel Springer has invested £125 million in Purplebricks for 11.5% of its share capital, it has been announced, subject to a board meeting likely to rubber-stamp the deal next month. The surprise move by the €7 billion publisher of Europe’s largest tabloid newspaper Bild is to help fund a faster roll-out of the hybrid agency in the US, to prepare for entry into new markets and to improve its IT systems. Berlin-based Axel Springer’s investment, which echoes the Daily Mail’s involvement with Zoopla, is being led by its classified advertising chief Andreas Wiele, who joins the Purplebricks’ board as a non-exec director. But the investment also adds to Axel Springer’s existing property portal portfolio – it operates several leading European versions of Rightmove including SeLoger, Immowelt and Immoweb. European expansion? And like many UK publishers who have invested in digital media in the past, the move is designed to offset the huge migration by many agents from traditional publishing to online, and suggests an imminent move by the hybrid agent into European markets such as Germany and France. “Under the leadership of its founder Michael Bruce, Purplebricks has created a highly innovative digital real…