Casavo: the platform that’s revolutionizing proptech

Casavo is a technological platform for the real estate and residential markets that aims to redesign and change the ways people buy and sell houses in Europe by providing an integrated experience. The startup was founded in Milan by Giorgio Tinacci at the end of 2017. “From the beginning, our goal was to build a tech platform that could offer a simpler, more convenient user experience, one that would be more in line with the needs of new generations. The project was born at the end of 2017 in Italy as the southern European market was interesting from the point of view of market fundamentals, but it also showed certain inefficiencies that we could solve”, stated Giorgio Tinacci. Over the years, Casavo has expanded overall Europe, in particular to Spain and France.

Casavo started by focusing on sellers, since usually the real estate transaction starts from a person’s need to sell their property. The biggest problem is that selling is a very long process: on average, in the main metropolitan areas, it takes about 200 days to close a real estate transaction. It’s a very complex process grounded on a high degree of uncertainty, due to information asymmetry that generates a lot of stress in customers.

Casavo has solved this problem by removing a step in the buying and selling process, initially positioning itself as a direct buyer through an “instant buy” service, purchasing a property and then finding a final buyer. “Over time, we have expandedour offer, and today sellers can either decide to sell directly to us or ask us to be connected to another buyer. Besides, we have also worked on the end-to-end experience on the buyer’s side: we don’t  just stop at publishing an online catalogue, as typically happens, but we follow the customer through the whole process, from their mortgage request to the notary process, including all connected integrated services”, explained Tinacci. Casavo is a completely new service that shortens buying and selling time and bureaucracy.

Casavo’s encounter with P101

Casavo met P101 between 2020 and 2021, but the two companies had already been in contact for some time in the past. “As one of the main players in the venture capital market in Italy, we looked a lot at P101 even before our official partnership” – explained Tinacci, – “They have always looked with interest at the development of Casavo over the years, also because they have a particular inclination for the proptech market. Therefore, they decided to make an investment at the beginning of 2021, that was consolidated over time with other investments. In addition to this role of investor, P101 constantly participates in all strategic discussions for the development of the company and in the development of specific new projects.

Casavo’s competitors

Casavo does not have real competitors, especially in Italy, but there are players in the proptech sector who cover or try to cover assistance during the buying and selling phase with different or comparable solutions. In France, for example, there are some digital real estate agencies that try to simplify processes, or legacy players, such as real estate portals, with which Casavo has a relationship of coexistence instead of competition. Casavo is essentially unique, and the aspects that differentiate it from its competitors are various. For example, compared to a real estate agency, Casavo can directly buy properties and therefore offer an integrated platform that allows anybody to easily and transparently follow all the phases of the transaction. In the very long term, Casavo could be defined as a sort of “house e-commerce” that can assist customers in buying and selling, being able to provide all the ancillary services that may typically be needed during the sale, such as, for example, assistance in choosing the best mortgage offer on the market.

Casavo technology

Casavo’s ecosystem of products is based on specific elements that intertwine data analysis with technology and as asuch it makes the buying and selling process simpler and less stressful.

Casavo operates in a sector that is characterized by poor information transparency, where there is no single qualified and visible repository of all real estate transactions, therefore it is necessary to know how to read the data in order to correctly evaluate the properties and offer the best economic proposal. However, Casavo also aims to provide “educational contents” to facilitate the process of buying and selling properties through the correct information of all the parties involved.

The technological aspect is linked to everything that lies behind buying and selling operations, because buying a house is a very complex and articulated transaction, with processes that must necessarily take place live and others that can be managed from the platform. Over time, Casavo has built an integrated software architecture to ensure maximum scalability and efficiency of each activity in the value chain, which is reflected in an efficient, convenient and transparent buying and selling experience for customers.

Casavo’s User Experience

Casavo entered the market by providing a service that was tailored to the needs of property sellers, and then evolved by implementing its offer with other services on the buyer side. Using Casavo, sellers can follow all phases of the real estate transaction directly from the platform, via website or app. Each phase, from the evaluation of the property – and the specifications relating to the parameters of the the economic proposal – up to the sales agreement. Sellers can decide to accept Casavo’s offer , but they also have total visibility of buyers that might be interested in buying that type of property.

On the buyer’s side, through the platform users have access to a complete catalogue of properties and to a series of tools for an improved user experience. For example, thanks to a “real tour” technology, customers can view and visit the property directly from the platform, and this allows them to operate a sort of preliminary screening to evaluate which properties they’d like to visit. It is also possible to book a visit in just a few clicks.

Casavo also offers a series of auxiliary services to both parties, ranging from document management to mortgage consultancy  up to after-sales assistance.

Casavo’s future

The company has 3 priorities for the near future: the first is to accelerate profitability and efficiency of operations according to a series of technological developments. The second is to accelerate the development of the marketplace, and therefore of the entire user experience on both the seller’s and buyer’s side. The third priority is to continue its integration in France, a market where Casavo entered last summer through the acquisition of another player. France represents the main real estate market in Europe and therefore, at the moment, the priority for the company is to focus on integrating its commercial offer in this country before entering new European markets.

A fundamental step for Casavo has been its long-term strategic partnership with Unicredit, signed at the end of 2022, after receiving a 10 million investment by the credit institution. This agreement consists of three features: to offer integrated services for Unicredit customers, to develop further innovations in the real estate sector, and to offer new solutions from a capital market perspective in the real estate sector.