TIKO, the proptech focused on buying and selling homes in record time

Tiko Founder and co-founders
  • Tiko leverages technology throughout the end-to-end process.
  • Its founder Sina Afra has received more than 20 awards for his success as an entrepreneur.
  • Tiko leverages technology throughout the end-to-end process.

Tiko is a proptech company dedicated to buying and selling homes. The startup was created with the aim of providing users with a series of facilities when selling their home. Specifically, Tiko offers a sales margin of one week. This is done through a business model in which Tiko directly acquires the homes and, with a strong use of technology, makes the process more efficient.

The company, founded in 2017, is the work of four professionals in the startup ecosystem. Sina Afra, founder and CEO, studied at Harvard. Afra sold Markafoni, his fashion e-commerce, to Naspers in one of Turkey’s largest operations. Secondly, Ana Villanueva, co-founder and CEO Iberia. A graduate from MIT, Ana is a serial entrepreneur with extensive experience in Europe and Latin America. Before Tiko, Ana opened Jobandtalent in Mexico and grew it from scratch to a team of 40 people. In addition, she was previously an international consultant at Booz & Company and Arthur D. Little. Followed by Paco Sahuquillo, co-founder and COO Iberia. Trained at Insead, Paco has extensive experience in managing operations and large teams in multinational companies. Before working at Tiko, he was a management consultant at Bluecap. Finally, Can Gunay, co-founder and VP, who graduated from Harvard and has 24 years of professional experience, mostly in e-commerce and international startups, building teams from scratch and developing their operations.

As these four entrepreneurs explain, “Tiko means cashin Turkish”. Therefore Sina Afra, the company’s founder, chose this name. “Tiko is able to give instant cash to those who want to sell their house as we are the direct buyers, not intermediaries,” they say.

The founder Sina Afra has received more than 20 awards for his success as an entrepreneur and has been selected as one of the 100 most influential people in technology in the world by Wired magazine (2016).

BUSINESS MODEL

Tiko stands out for its “ease and efficiency” of selling properties. “We turned a long and stressful process, on average in Spain it takes 8 months to sell a property, into a simple process of only 7 days. In addition, we save the owner inconveniences such as strangers visiting their home, as well as endless paperwork,” the company’s team says.

To provide this differential value, Tiko leverages technology throughout the end-to-end process. For example, “our AVM (Automated Valuation Model) uses Big Data to be able to make a valuation and offer in just 24 hours and without having to visit the property,” they state.

With all this, Tiko’s business model focuses -fundamentally- on obtaining a small margin between the purchase and sale of the property. The property owner sells it to Tiko with a small discount on its market price, similar to what an intermediary’s commission would be, in exchange for the convenience and speed of finding a buyer who will pay them instantly. The company’s team then improves the homes to give them added value and put them back on the market. “With that added value we get another small profit margin on the purchase,” the team notes.

Tiko is currently located in Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, and Malaga. And in terms of investments made, Tiko has achieved $42 million, between equity and debt.Likewise, “we needed an equity round and a debt round. This investment has been used to further expand our startup to other regions. Since our foundation we have been operating in Madrid, in 2019 we expanded to Barcelona and Malaga and last January we started working in Seville”, the founders say.

Tiko is backed by venture capital heavyweights such as Rocket Internet (Zalando, La Nevera Roja), Cabiedes (BlaBlaCar, Privalia) and btov, among others. And in its roadmap for the coming months, the company plans to start its expansion and thus begin operating in other Spanish cities, as well as in the main European capitals. Specifically, the starting point will be Lisbon, where it has already acquired the first asset.