Boston Logic, a provider of real estate brokerage software, has gulped down customer relationship management system (CRM) Propertybase, marking the first in a series of planned acquisitions.
Boston Logic CEO David Friedman declined to disclose terms of the deal, other than to say that Propertybase will retain all of its employees.
Boston Logic became Providence Equity’s “platform for acquisition” of real estate software after the private equity firm, which has $50 billion in capital under management, made an undisclosed investment in Boston Logic last year. Drawing on Providence Equity’s deep pockets, it’s looking to build real estate tech portfolios through acquisitions — a goal shared by some other well-heeled firms like Zillow Group.
“We are looking at a lot of opportunities out there,” Friedman said. “Price does not scare us away.”
Boston Logic was attracted to Propertybase because of its global reach and effective use of the Salesforce platform.
Propertybase agent dashboard
Propertybase boasts around 1,000 brokerage and team customers spread across more than 60 countries. Boston Logic has hundreds of U.S. brokerage customers, including San Francisco-based Pacific Union and Atlanta-based Harry Norman Realtors.
Propertybase has customized the Salesforce platform, known as Force.com, to suit the needs of brokerages, augmenting the core Salesforce CRM with listing management and marketing features.
Because it’s built on Force.com, Propertybase can integrate with thousands of other apps, offering brokerages nearly limitless upgrade opportunities, Friedman said.
DocuSign, Cirrus Insight, MailChimp, Conga, Distribution Engine and SMS Magic are among the many apps that brokerages have chosen to integrate with Propertybase.
While Propertybase offers a CRM, Boston Logic provides a more comprehensive business management platform for brokerages that includes websites, CRM, email marketing and marketing automation and data management.
Boston Logic has placed an emphasis on integrating with other products, allowing for features such as the ability to import leads, track listing engagement across the Internet and streamline print marketing campaigns, Friedman said.
The company plans to integrate with transaction management systems such as dotloop and Skyslope to provide “closed-loop reporting” that would allow brokerages to pinpoint the return on investment of their marketing spend.
The Propertybase acquisition creates “cross-sell and upsell opportunities” for Boston Logic, Friedman said. The two will continue to offer their software as standalone products, but Boston Logic also plans to create a hybrid in the future.
“There are numerous Propertybase clients who could use a website and a web marketing system like the one we offer,” Friedman said.
The acquisition highlights Providence Equity’s entry (via Boston Logic) into a club of well-heeled companies, such as Zillow Group and Elm Street Technology, that are building product portfolios to capture wide swathes of the real estate industry.
The fragmented real estate tech landscape has created a “fundamental inefficiency in the marketplace,” Friedman said, with too many startups reinventing the wheel and brokerages ultimately footing the bill.
By accumulating top-shelf products and cross-pollinating them, Providence Equity hopes to solve the problem, he said.
