Carsales co-founder invests and joins Urban.com.au board

Carsales co-founder Steve Kloss has invested in Australia's largest off the plan listings platform, Apartments.com.au.

Kloss has secured $1 million worth of shares, with the investment split between Apartments.com.au and proptech agency Social Garden, which Bird and Glover co-founded back in 2013.

Apartments.com.au was formed in 2018 when co-founders Mike Bird and George Glover bought Melbourne news website Urban Melbourne. Since then they've changed the offering, turning the news site into the go-to place for off the plan property, with more than 20,000 off the plan property projects on the platform.

Urban works with the likes of national developers Mirvac, Lendlease and Cedar Woods. 

Kloss will join the board of just Apartments.com.au. 

The board seat was in recognition of Kloss' record of “delivering solid strategic advice and high-touch involvement”, Bird said.

“We’ve known Steve for a long time, and he’s informally coached us through some pretty key strategic decisions over the years, so we’re stoked that he’s backing us to deliver on the next phase of our strategy given his experience with high-growth marketplace businesses."

Bird hopes to emulate the success of Carsales, and transition from an advertising marketplace to a transactional one.

“We have taken a keen interest in how Carsales Select is transforming the purchasing process by taking transactions online.

“We want to do something similar and partner with the best agents and agencies in the market to deliver property developers a fixed price per sale which helps them manage cost and reduce risk.”

Bird said that one of the biggest things holding buyers back from purchasing off the plan is the lack of transparency some developers provide.

"We’ve built a free “project tracking” tool that enables anyone to track a property development from council application, all the way through construction and any changes to the all important move-in date."

Glover, who is the CEO of Social Garden, said while he and Bird were building Social Garden and property AdTech platform LeadTe.ch, they found it odd that there was no centralised place for buyers to see all of the developments available.

"We decided to acquire Apartments.com.au and build that solution ourselves," Glover said.

Kloss joins other Urban shareholders, including Social Garden co-founder Andrew Archibald (also co-founder of Solar Bay), Group CFO Charlie Read (former finance executive at ANZ), Arthur Charlaftis (former COO at REA Group), longstanding advisor and board member David Trewern (founder of Fliteboard), Wendy Bonici (founder of Vocation). Other shareholders include Urban Melbourne founders Alastair Taylor, Baljak Family and Laurence Dragomir, partnerships executive Aaron Bird, and early employee Brendon McFarlane.

As well as LeadTech, Social Garden and Apartments.com.au, Bird and Glover own a number of property related businesses, including edtech Student Garden and the US-based Snaplistings, a full-funnel real estate marketing agency which has offices in New York and Miami. The pair also acquired news website Property Observer, and integrated it within Apartments.com.au, in 2020.

The deal represents a remarkable milestone for the entrepreneurial duo, both 33 years old. Almost 10 years ago, they bought a one-way plane ticket to Melbourne – seeking success with nothing but the clothes on their back.