Economic Times (ET): What is Relata all about and what was the idea behind it?
Samudragupta Talukdar (ST): Relata is an enterprise SaaS tool for the real-estate ecosystem, especially for the developers and builders to accelerate sales while focusing on the primary market. The idea came to us five years ago when we realized that the entire real-estate ecosystem was looking to improve their sales conversion. While there were CRM and lead management tools available, they didn’t address the core issue of customer experience.
During our research, we realized that customer experience was the most important thing. We realized two key things buyers are looking for: engagement and exploration, and seamless deal closures and processes. Inspired by advancements in other sectors like consumer tech and e-commerce, we decided to build a platform that enhances the customer journey from discovery to purchase. Essentially, we transformed the process, enabling developers to convert leads into successful sales with better efficiency.
ET: What are the core offerings of Relata, and how does it help developers?
ST: Essentially, we provide a suite of tools to enhance the sales process for developers. We are a small team based out of Pune, but with a pan-India presence focusing on working with the primary real-estate ecosystem. We are building a smart-real estate ecosystem that powers any real-estate executive to carry forward their work on the Relata platform. We have VR as a segment, behavioral analytics for understanding buyer preferences, and AI-powered lead management to track and convert leads effectively. For example, our VR feature allows potential buyers to explore properties digitally, even before the physical site is ready, helping them make an informed decision.
We also have a seamless booking engine, a channel partner app to centralize communication, and an AI-driven conversational assistant called Reiya. These tools collectively improve transparency, reduce lead leakages, and eliminate manual data entry. For developers, this means faster time-to-revenue, greater sales efficiency, and an enhanced customer experience.
ET: What is it that developers like about your platform? Why have they started adopting your technology, and what does it mean for them in terms of business?
ST: Developers appreciate three key benefits of our platform. The first is faster time-to-revenue where Relata enables developers to create a virtual experience, complete with property details and amenities, even before the physical site is ready. This allows sales teams to start faster. Then, we have removed the cumbersome data entry process by integrating scan-and-click functionalities. This automation of services has greatly increased efficiency and reduced human error.Additionally, we have reduced lead leakages. In our business, leads are the most valuable resource for developers. In cities like Mumbai, a single lead can be worth around Rs 3 lakhs and through our QR-code-based process, we ensure the lead leakage is minimised. All of this, in addition to our seamless booking engine, a channel partner app to centralize communication, and an AI-driven conversational assistant, makes Relata popular with the developers.ET: What makes Relata’s approach to technology different in real estate?
ST: Our approach makes the difference as we aim to solve a problem through our innovation. Technology in real estate has often focused on flashy tools like VR headsets etc., often not gaining much traction. Our approach is grounded in practicality. For example, instead of VR headsets, we offer the same digital experience on flat screens and mobile devices. This makes it accessible and user friendly. Buying a home is a significant investment, and customers value convenience over technical prowess. Homebuyers don’t really care about flashy features; they want to see clarity and ease of decision making. At Relata, we focus on what the market needs today while ensuring that our solutions can evolve with changing demands. We don’t focus on overwhelming the customers with unnecessary complexity.
ET: What are the possibilities for technology and companies like yours in the sector? And what are the limitations?
ST: First thing would be the technology adoption. One of the biggest challenges in a market as unstructured as ours is educating the customers and stakeholders. Overcoming trust barriers in a largely traditional market is definitely a limitation. Before the Covid-19 pandemic there was no business continuity plan in this ecosystem, it is a completely promoter driven market. People still rely on hoardings and newspapers for branding instead of digital tools for lead generation.
In real estate, developers still rely heavily on methods like hoardings, and newspapers and technology budgets are less than 0.3-0.4% of the total budget. This needs to change if we are to embrace meaningful innovation.
In that sense, the pandemic was an inflection point, creating awareness about digital solutions. Brokers and developers are now exploring digital marketing, SEO, and other similar tools to improve lead generation. As India’s real estate sector grows, with projections of becoming a trillion-dollar economy, we see immense potential for technology to transform the industry.
ET: How has business been for the last 5 years? I know few of those would be the COVID years. But how has business been?
ST: Over the past five years, Relata has consistently grown, achieving a 3x to 4x jump in revenue year-on-year. We have allocated focus on profitability and building a strong product from day one, and have not taken any pressure in the later stage. Our churn rate has been negligible in the past two years. Even as we were bootstrapped initially, this year, we’re targeting Rs 16 crores in revenue and expanding into international markets like Dubai. We are seeing a lot of IT adoption and business wise it looks good. We recently closed our pre-Series A round with investments from HDFC Capital and ICICI Bank, which will enable us to scale further and introduce new solutions.
