May 19, 2020
Land prices in Sydney and Melbourne soar amid housing affordability warnings
2 min
Residential land in Sydney is now worth more than $1,000/sqm after increasing by 9.8% in the 12 months to June 2017.
The latest edition of the HIA-CoreLogic Residential Land Report highlights the shifts in land values across the while of Australia, with Melbourne witnessing the largest hike, registering a 19.6% increase.
HIA Senior Economist Shane Garrett said: “The speed at which land price is increasing is a concern as it compounds the housing affordability problem.
“Land supply policy has to be central to making real and sustainable progress on housing affordability. This requires improved outcomes with respect to financing of housing infrastructure, monitoring and timely reporting on land release and speeding up zoning and subdivision process.”
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Consequently, the volume of land sold in Australia decreased by 9% during the same period, while numerous studies have also shown a drop in Australians buying houses.
Hobart bucked the trend in standout fashion, recording a massive 15.8% decrease in median land prices. Perth and Brisbane’s prices appear more stagnant, growing a modest 5% and 0.1% respectively.
Eliza Owen, CoreLogic’s Commercial Research Analyst, added: “Record high lot prices over the past five quarters are likely to have contributed to worsening affordability and influenced the unprecedented level of high density residential development that is currently under construction.
“As the Australian economy shifts from residential to non-residential construction, demand for vacant residential land may shift in location and scope. New and prospective infrastructure developments such as the inland freight rail and Badgerys Creek Airport will open up new employment and development opportunities further from the metropolitan regions which may stimulate demand for housing in areas with a more affordable price tag.”
Jun 8, 2021
Timeline: India takes unicorn leap with six in five days
2 min
We chart an historic week in India’s startup tech industry, where from April 5-9 the country achieved six unicorns
We chart an historic week in India’s tech industry, where in just five days, between 5-9 April 2021, the country achieved six new unicorns, bringing India’s total to 10 in 2021 to date, an immense unicorn leap from just seven in 2020 and six in 2019.
April 5: Meesho
India’s first social commerce unicorn, Meesho raised US$300m from SoftBank, Facebook and Shunwei Capital, giving the Bangalore-based startup a US$2.1bn valuation, a threefold jump from its previous funding round in 2019. Founded in 2015 by two IIT-Delhi graduates, Meesho connects producers and resellers, helping small businesses sell through social media. It has 45m customers and has enabled 13m entrepreneurs to start their online businesses with no investment.
April 6: CRED
Founded just over two years ago, Bangalore-based credit card repayment app CRED raised US$215m from Falcon Edge Capital and Coatue, nearly trebling its valuation to US$2.2bn from its January US$80m round. Allowing customers to pay off their credit card debt while earning CRED coins which they cash in for rewards, CRED has grown rapidly during COVID-19, doubling its customer base to nearly 6 million in a year.
April 7: API Holdings / Groww
The first epharmacy startup to gain unicorn status, PharmEasy (API Holdings), which has digitised 60,000 brick and mortar pharmacies and 400 doctors across India, raised US$350m in a round led by Prosus Ventures. Founded by four former Flipkart employees as a way of making investing simple, investment platform Groww became India’s second-youngest fintech unicorn, raising US$83m in Series D funding led by Tiger Global, quadrupling its previous round in September.
April 8: ShareChat
New Delhi-grown social media startup ShareChat, founded in 2016 by Mohalla Tech raised US$502m from Lightspeed Ventures, Tiger Global, Twitter and Snap taking its raised total over six rounds to US$766m and pushing its valuation to US$2.1bn. The funding will be used to grow its user base and short video platform Moj, which launched in 2020 following TikTok’s ban in India. The regional language startup claims 280m users.
April 9: Gupshup
AI-led conversational message startup joined the unicorn club after raising US$100m from Tiger Global giving it a ten-fold valuation of US$1.4bn. The smart messaging platform, which has seen accelerated growth during the pandemic, was founded in Bangalore in 2005 by serial entrepreneur Beerud Sheth, whose online freelancing platform Elance is now listed. Gupshup’s API enables 100,000+ businesses to build messaging and conversation experiences across 30+ communication channels.
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