Korean proptech startup RSquare enters Southeast Asia

South Korea’s online property platform RSquare aims Southeast Asian commercial real estate markets starting from Vietnam.

RSquare said on Sept. 3 that it has completed collecting information on about 10,000 commercial properties in major Vietnamese cities, including some 6,000 buildings, offices and plants in Ho Chi Minh. To build up a database, RSquare made on-site visits to 80% of offices in Ho Chi Minh, Hanoi and Da Nang, gathering information.

The proptech startup in June established a branch in Ho Chi Minh to enter Vietnamese commercial real estate markets utilizing a complete enumeration survey, a successful business model in South Korea.

“Starting with Ho Chi Minh, we will provide services including leases and sales of overseas office spaces, plants and industrial complexes, as well as real estate asset management consulting,” said RSquare CEO Lee John Woo.

TARGETS WHOLE SOUTHEAST ASIA

RSquare already brokered exclusive lease deals for industrial complexes between Vietnamese companies and South Korean companies, as well as firms from other countries such as China, Japan and Germany.

The company recently won an order for a project to relocate POSCO Group’s affiliates in Vietnam, for example. It carried out on brokerages and interior works for a South Korean domestic bank’s Ho Chi Minh office and a makeup and skincare brand Innisfree’s sales facilities. In addition, it brokered commercial property deals of foreign companies such as Power China.

“We are also working as an agency for leases and sales of factories and building in Southeast Asia owned by Korean companies,” Lee said.

RSquare is currently providing customers with a monthly report on vacancies of commercial real estate in Vietnam. It plans to expand the complete enumeration survey to 10 major cities in the country and enhance the database by next year. Based on this, the company aims to extend the service to the entire Southeast Asia.

In May 2020, RSquare invested in Propzy, a Vietnamese online real estate platform specialized in residential property. In 2019, it also invested in the operator of Indonesia’s Mamikos, which accounted for about 50% of the local studio brokerage market.

Write to A-Young Yoon at youngmoney@hankyung.com
Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.