The Billion-Dollar Journey Of The Pre-built Home Business Startups

by Hoai Chau, Startup Vietnam

Calling for an investment of up to millions of dollars, Revolution Precrafted made a big splash when it became the Philippines’ first unicorn startup.

On a last day of 2015, in a spacious office in Makati area, Manila, Philippines, after a series of assessments of prospects and risks, the name Revolution Precrafted was finally born with the ambition to be a home business startup. design and build, which was considered difficult to do at the time. 

The idea of ​​pre-assembled houses usually only comes to mind when one thinks of children’s play sets for entertainment purposes and it’s quite crazy to think that they can be used for living. But Robbie Antonio – a Filipino millionaire turned that crazy thing into reality.

Coming from a wealthy family, inheriting the quintessence of the real estate business from his father, business owner Century Properties, Antonio soon joined billion-dollar projects and created relationships with big names. such as Forbes Media, Armani, Versace Home, Paris Hilton or Trump Corporation.

From a young age, thanks to his passionate and serious interest in art collecting, Antonio is known for a series of awards such as one of Artnet’s 20 most innovative art collectors in the world (2014), in the top 200 of the world’s top art collectors (2015), the top 12 young art collectors to watch and the top 100 art collectors (2016).

Robbie Antonio- founder of billion-dollar startup Revolution Precrafted.

Not stopping there, aspiring to innovate the current architecture and the traditional real estate market, he founded Revolution Precrafted with the goal of bringing professional and unique designed houses closer to the masses. at a comfortable price.

The birth of Revolution was also the first brick that laid the foundation for the global prefabricated house design activity. From then on, investment stories about “instant noodles” housing design emerged in the vibrant real estate market as its name “Revolution”.

In the 2018 Mavericks Report, Antonia was named by BuildWorld as one of the 25 pioneers that transformed the construction industry. Singapore Straits Time has voted him in the 50 Asians who have changed the current way of life.

Different path 

Spreading across the beautiful waters of Dubai, The World Islands emerges as the world’s first artificial island with 300 different large and small islands built according to the shape of the world map. The prime location and the chain of high-class hotels and villas full of magic attract tourists from all over the world. Few people can expect that this is one of the cooperation projects of Revolution Precrafted in thousands of other prefabricated house projects around the world.

Revolution Precrafted allows users to submit location information and requirements for the desired home in a professionally designed and easy to use interface. In addition, the site also showcases a large collection of home designs to meet all different tastes, buyers just have to choose.

By using Revolution Precrafted, buyers will have unfinished homes. The frame will be delivered to the site and assembled and completed to become a permanent house. Each home costs around $120,000 and delivers anywhere in the world in as little as 90 days.

After 2 years of operation, Revolution caught the excitement of the real estate market, creating big waves that impacted the Philippine real estate industry at that time and spread to the world.

March 2017 marked a big step forward for Revolution Precrafted when it received an order of 110 million USD and raised 15.4 million USD from a number of investors such as 500 Startups.

Succeeding with a successful funding round in the B series and reaching a valuation of more than one billion USD, in October 2017, Revolution affirmed its position as the first billion-dollar startup in the Philippines. The main investor is K2 VC, founded by venture capitalist Ozi Amanat, famous for its investments in Alibaba, Twitter and a series of other popular startups such as Spotify, Palantir or Paytm.

“We have only completed Series B, so there will be more pressure to grow higher from here,” said Antonio, adding that the startup’s goal is to be in 85-100 cities by 2020.

In 2018, with revenue reaching $ 7.6 billion, Revolution Precrafted is sought after by units in the tourism industry because of its unique design and reasonable price. In March 2018, the company signed a $3.2 billion contract with Seven Tide to provide luxury apartments and hotel villas at The World Islands in Dubai. Then in April 2018 was a $300 million deal in the Caribbean and a $1.2 billion Okkyin City Riverside project in Yangon, Myanmar with KT Group.

The prefabricated house designs of Revolution Precrafted have done.

In addition to its headquarters located in the Philippines, Revolution expands its customer list to more than 28 countries, spanning 6 continents. Not only developing housing design, this startup also deploys restaurant, hotel and retail store models.

Reach new heights

Going back in time 5 to 10 years ago, the idea of ​​a prefabricated house can be intimidating in relation to generic designs and poor quality. However that is not the case with Revolution Precrafted. Robbie has wisely chosen to draw on the credibility of some of the big names in the architecture and design industries to develop the brand and overcome the challenge of facing a series of doubts about design differentiation. .

Top designers are collaborating with Revolution Precrafted.

To date, Revolution has collaborated with more than 80 world-renowned designers and architects such as Zaha Hadid and Jean Nouvel – winners of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, David Salle, Tom Dixon and Marcel Wanders, Renowned architecture firm Philip Johnson Alan Ritchie Architects and design team of Lenny Kravitz.

At DealStreetAsia’s 2018 PE-VC Asia Summit in Singapore, Antonio expected the potential to reach a valuation of $10 billion in the next three to four years. The founder will use the proceeds from the Series C funding round to establish additional branches in major markets, including one in Dubai to serve the Middle East market and one in Malaysia for the Southeast market. ASIAN.

“I am considering a public offering (IPO) of Revolution Precrafted securities in the New York or London market in the near future,” Antonio stressed.

Meet The Man Behind The First ‘Unicorn” Startup In Philippines- Valued At Over US$1B In Under 2 Years

by Zafirah Salim (vulcanpost.com)

True to his startup’s name – Revolution Precrafted – Robbie Antonio believes that he’s starting a revolution with his property business.

His startup mixes prefab homes and luxury branding to revolutionize the real estate industry – not just in the Philippines, but also around the world.

Its innovativeness has made it the first startup in the Philippines to achieve ‘unicorn’ status, a term used to describe a company that has a valuation of US$1 billion.

According to TechinAsia, it is one of the fastest companies to achieve this billion-dollar status in the Southeast region.

Early last year, prolific startup accelerator 500 Startups poured money into Revolution, bringing the company’s valuation to US$256 million.

Then in October 2017, a fresh round of funding led by Singaporean venture capital firm K2 Global raised an undisclosed amount that brought the startup over the billion-dollar mark.

Real Estate Runs In His Blood 

Robbie Antonio (left) and his father Jose E.B. Antonio (right) / Image Credit: Forbes

Robbie, the youngest to be featured in Forbes’ 2017 list of the 50 richest people in the Philippines, belongs to a family that has made its fortune in real estate.

His father – Jose E.B. Antonio – owns Century Properties and shook up the real estate market by selling an aspirational lifestyle to Filipinos, and played to their penchant for celebrities and branded names.

Trump Tower in Manila / Image Credit: Condo Rent Sale

As the managing director, Robbie is responsible for spearheading the company’s direction and branded collaborations like the Trump Tower in Manila, a Paris Hilton-branded collection of condos, Milano Resides by Versace, Acqua Livingstone by Missoni Home, and the world’s first Forbes Tower.

“I’ve done about US$2.1 billion worth of branded deals for the family business,” Robbie said in an interview with Tech Wire Asia.

He added that this hands-on experience has made him “understand the pain points in real estate”, and working on these glitzy projects is what led him to start up his own company.

Established in December 2015, Revolution Precrafted is a manifestation of Robbie’s dream to fuse his experience in constructing stunning, exclusive buildings with his deep love for contemporary art.

Robbie is actually an avid art collector who has been recognised as one of the top collectors in the world by Artnet in 2016, placed alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, Bernard Arnault, Paul Allen, and other point-one percenters.

According to him, this obsession with art is what led him to develop branded homes for the middle market and ultimately want to make designer homes accessible to more people.

“My inspiration for the project came from my own passion and experience in art collection. I wanted to make architecture collectible – but at an accessible price point,” Robbie said in an interview with Huffington Post.

“Revolution preserves the exclusivity of art collection and by introducing prefabricated technology, it expands the potential of ownership.”

Making Designer Homes More Accessible

Revolution Precrafted sells highly customisable prefabricated properties such as modular homes, condominiums, pavilions, pop-up retail stores, and fitness centres.

Design Miami 2015 – Asstant Fania Castro Photographer Mike Butler

Developed by world-renowned architects and designers like the late Zaha Hadid, David Salle, Tom Dixon, and Marcel Wanders, the homes are priced at an average of US$120,000.

Prefabricated homes, often referred to as prefab homes or simply prefabs, are specialist dwelling types of prefabricated building, which are manufactured off-site in advance, usually in standard sections that can be easily shipped and assembled.

This means that you don’t have to go through the hassle of hiring a whole team of contractors, manufacturers or builders, and also save on the astronomical fees of commissioning a famous architect.

The only instructions Robbie gave his designers was to make a structure from 50 to 250 square meters with components that could fit in a shipping container.

Through his ties with quality fabricators here and abroad, Revolution can also complete the developments faster.

A 50-square-meter home can be done in as fast as 90 days as opposed to the usual two years, since most of the components have already been fabricated.

Robbie told Esquire PH that he has “worked with 13 Pritzker Prize architects, possibly more than any human being in the world.”

“I love doing this! It’s not just about the valuation. It’s [about] creating something so inherently different.”

“We have intellectual property over all these names – you can get them at a ridiculously high price and wait a number of years, or get it from us in three months at a much cheaper price.”

In a separate interview with CoBo, Robbie said that he has a penchant for “[working] with the best people in the world”.

Learning from the best is a “privilege” and he wants to “impart that to the world”, he added.

Robbie Antonio (left) and Paris Hilton (middle) at an Azure media conference in 2011 / Image Credit: Weekend Balita

This sort of branded collaboration has been done before in retail, such as Rodarte for Target and Balmain for H&M, but it’s definitely a novel concept in homes and architectures.

According to an interview with Tech Wire Asia, such branding can help increase the development’s sale price compared to competitors who might have a superior location, and it also tends to sell faster.

By leveraging the star power of these big names, Revolution successfully drives up the value of his buildings and simultaneously eliminates the idea that prefabricated homes are ‘cheap’.

But beyond the high valuation, Robbie said that such branded collaborations are great because they churn out designs that are “inherently different.”

“I’ve been [linking up architects with different celebrities] for well over a decade already, so [I’ve] understood how we could enhance the liveability and saleability of a product,” he told Tech Wire Asia.

“The value proposition of [Revolution] is that you can go to Lenny Kravitz – if you can – pay him a million dollars, wait two to three years of your life – or do it through me for an affordable price.”

“We’re the only branded housing company in the world.”

He admitted that keeping prices low has been a challenge – to “[create] something couture at Zara prices, while still keeping to the DNA of the architects and designers, who are used to blowing through sky-high budgets.”

Not Your Regular Real Estate Company

Image Credit: Revolution Precrafted

According to Robbie, his startup is greatly inspired by Airbnb and he aims to disrupt the real estate industry through lower price points and its technological innovations.

He admires Airbnb’s simple model of having no land and zero inventory, a global footprint, and its ability to use technology in a disruptive way.

And that’s exactly what Robbie wants to achieve with his own company.

“We are the complete antithesis of the traditional real estate company. We cater to the world. We do not have to be site-specific, buy land, take out construction loans, or have inventory,” he told DealstreetAsia.

“Our highly differentiated business model provides the best in architectural design globally, at lower costs and shorter timelines, through the ingenious application of technological innovation.”

With tech as the very fiber of its DNA, Revolution uses advanced robotics to create the house in order to reduce the errors and speed up the process.

Unlike traditional players, it’s very low on capital expenditures as it doesn’t own land; it’s not forced to sell in particular sites (it ships homes globally); and it gets its cash flow in three months versus the typical three to four years’ turnover time for brick and mortar firms.

“I would like to believe we have fundamentally transformed the real estate/property development sector by introducing affordability, accessibility, simplicity, convenience, and sustainability to an otherwise intimidating, complicated and generally expensive industry,” he told Forbes

As of March 2017, the company has booked US$110 million in orders for real estate projects.

When asked what he thinks are the contributing factor(s) of his startup’s success, he said that it’s “predicated on addressing the most common pain points of home buyers – speed, quality, cost, design, and complexity of the process.”

“Our fabricators can complete the developments faster. A home can be completed in three months as opposed to the usual two years as most of the components have already been fabricated, ready for assembly at the job site.”

“Moreover, instead of wasting six months to a year on design, our clients can choose from the works of the most revered award-winning architects and artists.”

Essentially, we democratize access to branded design of living spaces by combining world-renowned designers with the latest advances in construction technology.

The “Ikea Of Homebuilding”

Robbie Antonio, founder of Revolution Precrafted / Image Credit: Revolution Precrafted

Moving forward, Robbie said that he is confident that his startup will be the global leader in designer fabricated structures, and eventually be the “Ikea of homebuilding”.

Although its main markets lie in Southeast Asia, the startup is “making moves to penetrate the American, Middle-Eastern and European markets.”

By this year, it aims to have at least four to five offices within Southeast Asia.

Globally, they plan on having offices in 20 countries – UAE, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Nepal, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China, USA, Mexico, UK, Brazil, Argentina, Spain, Portugal, France, and Italy.

“And the list just keeps on growing. Global domination is our end goal,” Robbie told DealStreetAsia.

Sharing a piece of advice to fellow entrepreneurs, Robbie said that the real problem with the local startup community is the “lack of funding“.

If you do not have access to capital in the Philippines, be resourceful and go abroad. There are other countries like Malaysia or Indonesia, where there are more early-stage VC funds than the Philippines. Go pitch to them.

“Passion is not enough; obsession is key. You have to be extremely ambitious. Believe in your vision and see it through. Giving up should never be an option,” he added.

Philippines’ First $1 billion Startup Hopes To Inspire Entrepreneurs

by Cathy Yang and Jessica Fenol, ABS-CBN News

https://www.instagram.com/p/Ba53QZoDbBJ/

MANILA – The founder of the Philippines first “unicorn” or $1 billion startup said he hoped his success would inspire more Filipino entrepreneurs to think out of the box.

Revolution Precrafted, builder of designer modular homes, is led by Jose Roberto Antonio, one of the heirs of luxury developer Century Properties Group.

“I hope that inspires Filipino entrepreneurs, brilliant minds out there. Hopefully in our own little way, the company inspires some people going forward,” Antonio told ANC on the sidelines of the ASEAN Business & Investment Summit.

Antonio said he had to be “flexible” with pricing in Southeast Asia to lure more buyers.

“The house is still the biggest purchase of a human being, our business plan is to really establish formidable joint ventures with local business people, developers to streamline business further,” he added.

At Revolution, homes can be built from 3 months to 2 years using advanced robotics, he said.

Read More:  ASEAN 2017   ASEAN Business and Investment Summit  

Meet Philippines’ First Unicorn Startup

by Adelaida Salikha, SEASIA

The Philippines has hit a huge milestone: it just got its first unicorn startup.

Revolution Pre-crafted, a developer of prefabricated designer homes, has raised its series B round co-led by Singapore’s K2 VC, valuing the company at over US$1 billion, according to two sources familiar with the deal.

That makes Revolution – which is just about to turn two years old in December – one of, if not, the fastest to achieve billion-dollar status in Southeast Asia, one of the sources said and this was confirmed by Tech in Asia data.

The Billboard House Rendered | Revolution PreCrafted

The startup’s new prominent investor K2 was founded by venture capitalist Ozi Amanat, who’s known for his investments in Alibaba and Twitter before their public offerings.

K2 counts several unicorns in its portfolio – Spotify, Magic Leap, Paytm, and Palantir.

“Large international family offices have participated in the round as well,” the other source stated. We’ve reached out to Revolution and K2 for their statements.

It is a rare breakout story for the Philippines’ nascent technology scene where startup programs and policies, as well as funding are yet to catch up with neighbor markets.

“We need more success stories like Revolution to inspire other young people to take a risk and start their own companies,” said Butch Meily, president of Filipino incubator-accelerator Ideaspace and Qbo Innovation Hub.

The man behind the startup, Robbie Antonio, belongs to one of the Philippines’ wealthiest families that has built its fortune in real estate.

Robbie Antonio | Revolution Precrafted.

A voracious art collector, Antonio is the brains behind billions worth of his family’s projects done in collaboration with big names such as Forbes Media, Armani/Casa, Versace Home, Paris Hilton, and the Trump group.

He’s turned to entrepreneurship to make designer homes accessible to more people.

His company sells prefab homes conceived by world-renowned architects and designers like Zaha Hadid, David Salle, Tom Dixon, and Marcel Wanders. The homes are priced at an average of US$120,000. They can be ordered from the company’s site and shipped anywhere in the globe in at least 90 days.

Bamboo Pavilion Rendered | Revolution PreCrafted
BLOCK Rendered View | Revolution PreCrafted

It had booked US$110 million in orders and just raised a US$15.4 million round from investors like 500 Startups, which fought hard to get into the deal. “The company didn’t need to raise. I had to convince them to take my money for value-add, not cash,” 500 managing partner Khailee Ng previously said.

“This is truly a milestone for the Philippine startup ecosystem. Hopefully, this will put us on the map as a country able to produce intellectual property and product-based technologies,” said Jojo Flores, co-founder of accelerator Plug and Play. “I’m also expecting this event to unleash some of the investment capital from traditional brick and mortar businesses to our tech startups and our corporations to begin integrating startups into their businesses.”

“This achievement is a clarion call to the first, second, and third generation families invested heavily in the Philippines to look closely at how they can innovate in their present markets and open up new markets and segments for themselves,” commented Paul Pajo, co-founder of Smart Developer Network, a developer community program in the Philippines.


Source : TechInAsiahttp://news.abs-cbn.com/business/11/14/17/philippines-first-1-billion-startup-hopes-to-inspire-entrepreneurs

This Company Just Made A Miracle, Becoming A Billion-dollar Startup Of The Philippines

by Van Dam, Cafe Biz Vietnam

Revolution Precrafted specializes in selling prefabricated homes with an average price of $120,000 per unit. Customers can order through the company’s website and have their homes delivered in as little as 90 days around the world.

According to Tech in Asia, the Philippines’ pre-built home-selling startup Revolution Precrafted is valued at more than $1 billion after a recent funding round, becoming the country’s first billion-dollar startup.

With less than 2 years of operation, since December 2015, Revolution Precrafted is also the startup that has achieved this value the fastest in Southeast Asia.

Leading this round of Revolution Precrafted’s funding is Singapore’s K2 investment fund. This is a fund founded by Ozi Amanat, who is known for his investments in Alibaba and Twitter before these companies made their IPOs. K2 also invests in many big startups such as Spotify, Magic Leap, Paytm, and Palantir.

This is considered a miracle for a startup in a small country with a small amount of startup capital compared to neighboring countries like the Philippines.

Revolution Precrafted was founded by Robbie Antonio, from a family specializing in real estate. Robbie is the brains behind a series of billion-dollar projects in collaboration with big names like Forbes Media, Armani/Casa, Versace Home, Paris Hilton, and the Trump corporation. Later, he switched to making houses with professional design to reach more customers.

Revolution Precrafted specializes in selling prefabricated homes with an average price of $120,000 per unit. Customers can order through the company’s website and have their homes delivered in as little as 90 days around the world.

As of March 2017, Revolution Precrafted has completed $110 million worth of orders and raised $15.4 million in capital from several investors such as 500 Startups. These investors also have to work hard to get approval to invest here.

“Revolution Precrafted doesn’t need to be mobilized, I had to convince them to invest here,” said 500 Startups fund representative Khailee Ng.

In Southeast Asia, there are a number of billion dollar startups such as Sea, Grab and Lazada in Singapore; Traveloka and Tokopedia of Indonesia, and VNG Corp of Vietnam.

 

Meet Robbie Antonio, The Man Behind The Billion-Dollar “Unicorn”

by Audrey N. Carpio, Esquire Magazine

There’s a montage in HBO’s Silicon Valley where startup founders pitch their product at a TechCrunch Disrupt conference. They each earnestly and nerdily claim that their app is going to revolutionize the world and/or make it a better place, using the rhetoric of technological determinism to capture the deep pockets of venture capitalists who hope to fund the next Uber or Airbnb. The Philippines has its very first startup that’s achieved unicorn status—that is, a company with a valuation of $1 billion—and it is one with roots in property development. “The revolution has begun!” declares Robbie Antonio, future-unicorn founder, sounding not unlike the Elon Musks of the world. Of course, he’s referring to Revolution Precrafted, the startup that’s got the VC world abuzz.

Earlier this year, startup accelerator 500 Startups (incidentally founded by Dave McClure, one of the supposed inspirations behind the “incubator owner” Erlich Bachman character in Silicon Valley), poured money into Revolution, bringing the company’s valuation to $256 million. 500 Startups, which has been zeroing in on Southeast Asia as the next area of explosive growth, has successfully backed Grab, the Singapore-based ride-sharing app now valued at US$ 3 billion. “We’re very happy. One of the world’s more prolific seed venture capital companies funded us. They fought their way to come in, because we were funded already for our seed round,” says Robbie, who often speaks enthusiastically, if not forcefully, that one can’t help but yield to his vision. “The reasons are twofold—one, it’s extremely, and I hate to use such a cliché word, disruptive, and two, it has a proven business model. I’ve been doing real estate for over a dozen years.”

(As of October 23, a fresh round of funding led by Singaporean venture capital firm K2 Global raised an undisclosed amount that brought Revolution Precrafted over the billion-dollar mark.)

He introduced the concept of branding to prefabricated homes, an industry not normally associated with aspirational living

IMAGE Edric Chen

Robbie has been the managing director of Century Properties, the real estate development rm established in 1986 by his father Jose E.B. Antonio, and is responsible for the company’s direction toward branded collaborations like the Milano Residences by Versace, Acqua Livingstone by Missoni Home, Azure by Paris Hilton, Forbes Media Tower, Armani for Century Spire, and their newest luxury residences, the Trump Tower. 

At the Design Miami fair last December 2015, Robbie launched his own company, Revolution Precrafted, showing a dining pavilion designed by Zaha Hadid and Patrick Schumaker, and a mobile gallery by Gluckman Tang (Hadid passed away in 2016, making the “Volu” pavilion one of her last projects; Robbie donated it to the Cannes amfAR auction, where it was sold for €1.3 million). He introduced the concept of branding to prefabricated homes, an industry not normally associated with aspirational living, and created something that has been done in retail—think Rodarte for Target, Balmain for H&M—but never before in homes and architecture.

Prefab homes have been around since the automotive boom, borrowing the idea of assembly-line production where housing parts were mass-produced in a factory. Starting in 1908, the earliest kit homes were sold by mail on the Sears catalog, and throughout the decades, manufactured homes became popular low-cost housing options. In postwar France, pioneering French architect Jean Prouve designed “demountable houses” to address the housing shortage. Though now hailed as innovative modernist masterpieces, they failed to achieve commercial viability during his time. In the 2000s, architects started taking interest in modern prefab structures that tapped into a higher-end market, and the “great 21st-century prefab revival” was arguably kickstarted when Dwell magazine issued a challenge to create stylish yet affordable prefabs that can be mass-produced. On the market today are architect-designed prefabs, slick little Muji Huts, and a $1,100 Ikea flatpack shelter, as well as container vans, modular units, and artisan mobile homes that you can unmount and relocate, and the prevalence of these compact habitats has also fueled the tiny home movement.

IMAGE Edric Chen

So what do you get when you marry the convenience of prefab with the design power of Pritzker Prize-winning architects? A concept quite confounding, yet brilliant in its audacity. Robbie, through years of fraternizing with Hollywood celebrities, star athletes, Forbes-listers, movers- and-shakers of the art and design world, and yes, world leaders and their kin, has developed a virtual Rolodex of potential partners for his business plans.

It’s not an overstatement to say that Robbie is one of the most connected young Filipinos in the country today. Franco Varona, Revolution’s chief operating officer, breaks down the founder’s strange attraction: “He has this magnetic personality—once you meet Robbie, you’re not likely to forget him, and combined with his endless desire to close a deal, makes it very hard for anyone to say no to him.” This I can attest to.

It’s not an overstatement to say that Robbie is one of the most connected young Filipinos in the country today.

How Revolution Precrafted works, in a nutshell: You go online to Revolution’s website, choose a designer house, then click buy. Somewhere in a factory in India, Korea, Italy, or the Philippines, the parts are fabricated, usually with robotics, then shipped to you and assembled onsite, wherever you are in the world. Your very own Marmol Radziner, or if you want to go Filipino, Ed Calma abode without the hassle of hiring a whole team of contractors, manufacturers, builders, etc., and of course the astronomical fees of commissioning a famous architect.

Though the individual market is catered to, Revolution is primarily geared toward developers who can deal with building codes and mount many structures at once, whether for hotel and resorts, condos and residential areas, or commercial and art centers. In a couple of years, a “Revolution community” will pop up in Batulao, Batangas, where you can enjoy the cool mountain air in your prefabricated weekend home, or see art in a Jean Nouvel museum without having to go to the Louvre Abu Dhabi.

This democratization is at the core of Revolution’s “disruptive” philosophy. As a client who commissioned the legendary Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas to design his own house—a black concrete private museum/ residence in Forbes Park so stealth that only a select few have been inside—Robbie would know all about the tedious processes and prohibitive costs involved in building one’s dream house. In the infamous Vanity Fair article from 2013, Robbie had expressed that he wanted to work with ve Pritzker winners by the time he turns 45. Now only 40, he beat his own deadline in typical Robbie zealousness, and the new projects aren’t just for personal enjoyment, like those pavilions he started acquiring.

IMAGE Edric Chen

If it’s not obvious by now, Robbie is an obsessive collector of art, who has commissioned portraits from the likes of Julian Schnabel, Damian Hirst, and David LaChapelle. Artnet recognized him as one of the top 100 collectors in the world in 2016, putting him alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, Bernard Arnault, Paul Allen and other point one percenters. It was in thinking about these pavilions, collectible by only a tiny fraction of people who are art lovers, that led to Robbie’s eureka moment of developing branded homes for the middle market. “Honestly, in business, passion is not even enough. OBSESSION is key,” he says, and it’s this obsession—almost like a possession—that drives him to take his company to a whole different level.

“I’ve worked with 13 Pritzker Prize architects, possibly more than any human being in the world,” he says. “I love doing this! It’s not just about the valuation, it’s creating something so inherently different. We have intellectual property over all these names, you can get them at a ridiculously high price and wait a number of years, or get it from us in three months at a much cheaper price.”

How much cheaper? A few of the homes Revolution recently released are priced for the local market, starting at P3.5 million. Robbie has been working with, or shall we say convincing, a renowned Filipino architect and getting him to do one for P1.5 million. It’s a challenge on both their parts, creating something couture at Zara prices, while still keeping to the DNA of the architects and designers, who are used to blowing through sky-high budgets.

The first time I interviewed Robbie, the company hadn’t announced the news about its latest valuation yet, but his unicorn mission was already well known. According to Varona, unlocking unicorn level is Robbie’s singular focus, and all roads lead to that end goal. You can imagine what it must be like to work with him. In the office, there is an internal rule requiring people to answer emails and texts within 10 minutes of receipt, and accomplish tasks within 24 hours, regardless of how complex the task may be. The work culture in the Philippines usually allows for a little to a lot of leeway when it comes to responsiveness, but because Revolution’s employees push themselves, the result is that everyone, internally and externally, gets pushed to complete tasks much faster than a typical Filipino company. “Everyone working with Robbie must have an incredible resistance to stress, and used to not having sleep,” Varona says, adding, “He has given us all three years to make it a US$ 2 billion company.”

“I’ve worked with 13 Pritzker Prize architects, possibly more than any human being in the world,” he says.

IMAGE Edric Chen

When I meet with Robbie again, they had moved to a much larger, still all black, office at the top floor of the Pacific Star Building, and with it, more wall space to display their ever increasing portfolio of branded homes, as well as the press coverage that he embraces. Two bottles of Trump-branded sparkling wine adorn an otherwise empty black side table, and a quick Google search tells me that they’re produced in the state of Virginia, on the same valley where American president Thomas Jefferson tended his own vineyard. Robbie had just come back from New York, where he signed up a Victoria’s Secret supermodel to be part of the roster. She’s not an interior designer, but she partnered up with someone who is, and Robbie took a look at their portfolio and says he was convinced. If we’re talking about the democratization of design, surely that’s when a model can be given the same billing as Marcel Wanders, Philip Johnson, and the de Portzamparcs, who all have designed structures for Revolution. One of Revolution’s more interesting collaborations is with style icon plus Daphne Guinness, an heiress who works in fashion, music, lm and philanthropy—the ultimate intersection of celebrity and art that, to Robbie, makes for one hell of a sexy branded home.

Revolution’s goal for swift global domination is made possible by taking the business model of a real estate company and turning it on its head: “We’re the complete antithesis of the traditional real estate company. We cater to the world. We don’t have to be site-specific, we don’t have to buy land, take out construction loans, or have inventory.” Certainly, no one is handing out flyers on the street. Being asset-light has enabled the company’s rapid growth, and rapid growth attracts VCs like flies to honey. “I’ve been through at least three cycles in my life. Boom and bust. It’s so easy to have an economy taken from you, and I learned from that. If an economy doesn’t do well, I can go to one that is doing better. I can maneuver.”

Aside from offering homes via an e-commerce platform, Revolution is on the same league as other tech startups because of what the company will eventually will be—a platform for a smart home. Robbie often says they are the “Ikea of homes,” for its plug-’n-play simplicity, or the “Tesla of homes,” because Tesla is a technology platform on wheels more than it is a car. “Revolution will be a technology platform on foundations,” says Varona. More than just providing four walls and a roof over your head, the precrafted home can be as intelligent as you choose it to be. A house that behaves like Siri or appears sentient certainly gives new meaning to the phrase, “if these walls could talk.”

The next day, we go see one of the model homes in person, the “Simple” by Jean Nouvel, which was on display at the Tuileries Garden in Paris before it was transported to a construction site in Taguig. As the name implies, it’s a pretty straightforward structure, almost shed-like with a corrugated roof, aluminum exteriors, and Japanese-inspired mobile wooden partitions that allow the user to de ne the spaces inside. At 40 sq. meters, it’s a cozy one-bedroom, but modular and expandable to up to four bedrooms. Nouvel has said of the house: “What we propose here is the most immediate way to inhabit a space, within a short timeframe, in places that are not designed for residential use today and that become so, spontaneously.” Simple is a high- end, thoughtfully planned emergency shelter that Ja Rule would have been wise to consider for the Fyre Festival.

Speaking of disasters, Robbie is in the perfect position to roll out relief shelters should catastrophes strike, and this is something he pledges to do as part of the company’s CSR, having already supported Shigeru Ban with his “Paper Log” homes in Cebu. With temporary housing being subject to intense politicking and controversy—the FEMA trailers for Hurricane Katrina and the still-un nished housing projects for Typhoon Haiyan come to mind—Revolution could very well provide sustainable housing solutions that need not be merely temporary; structures that can be erected in a few days, con gured to suit different needs and unforeseen situations, and that also—why the hell not— look good. Shelters of all kinds have been imagined in response to the displacement of humans, but Revolution is perhaps the only Filipino company with the capabilities for mass-producing them, and more importantly, delivering them within a critical time frame.

“I’m known to be very impatient. I’m using my weakness as a skill set here, hopefully as an advantage, or an integral part of the business plan.” Basically, the need for instant grati cation drives everything he does. “Big time, all the time,” Robbie grins. “Is that bad?”

This article originally appeared under the title “The Obsession of Robbie Antonio” in the July 2017 issue of Esquire Philippines.

Filipino Developer Aims For ‘Unicorn” Status With Modular Luxury

by Cathy Yang, ABS-CBN News

MANILA – Visionary developer Robbie Antonio hopes to become the Philippines’ first “unicorn” or billion-dollar startup with prefabricated luxury homes that he hopes will disrupt the global real estate market.

The 40-year-old CEO of Revolution Precrafted has partnered with 44 architects, including the late Pritzker Prize winner Zaha Hadid and American rock singer Lenny Kravitz, to create modern designs. A restaurant, he said, could be built in as fast as 3 weeks.

The son of Century Properties founder Jose Antonio hopes to earn his first $1 billion in 2 to 3 years. He recently secured a $1.1-billion joint venture agreement with Indonesia’s Bakrie Global Ventura.

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“You have to be extremely ambitious,” Antonio told ANC’s The Boss, after arriving in a jet black BMW 7 Series.

“To be different, you have to think differently. You can’t force to think differently you just have to be inherently different,” he said.

Potential “unicorns” have to be “relatively eccentric, extremely lofty and ambitious and very steadfast in their goals of achieving it.”

Revolution Precrafted CEO Robbie Antonio speaks to Cathy Yang for ANC’s The Boss. ABS-CBN News

Antonio said he was in talks with, among others, a Victoria’s Secret model and a “major” NBA player.

“I need to curate them personally,” said Antonio, referring to his partnerships. “I shun the outside consultants for this.”

Working with the family’s Century Properties, Antonio helped seal ventures with Hollywood socialite Paris Hilton and US President Donald Trump, when he was still a reality TV and real estate mogul.

Revolution Precrafted’s first Philippine project will be an art park in the south, Antonio said, adding he is having more pre-fabricated built abroad to be closer to his clients. The company is present in Puerto Rico, Nicaragua and Indonesia.

PH May Just Have Its First ‘Unicorn’

by Anelle Tayao-Juego, Philippine Daily Inquirer

To be the “Ikea of homebuilding.”

That, in a nutshell, is the mission of Filipino real-estate technology company Revolution Precrafted, which provides prefabricated property—pavilions, homes, condos, hotels—created by world-renowned architects at affordable prices.

“We try to really be a plug-and-play [real-estate] company that saves people a lot of time and brain power,” says Revolution’s CEO Robbie Antonio of Century Properties fame. “I [also] want to make design accessible to everyone, not just the wealthy. Zara was built on the idea that luxury design should be available to everyone, as was Ikea. Revolution Precrafted is the platform for this vision—in property.”

And it’s a vision that has caught the attention not just of other real estate companies—so far, Revolution has booked five development projects worth P26 billion, equivalent to 5,000 homes—but also venture capital and investment firms such as 500 Startups, which provided the company’s first round of funding, and Indonesia-based Bakrie Global Ventura, which signed a $1.1-billion joint venture agreement with Revolution during the recent Asean Summit.

“[500 Startups is] always looking for large industries whose value chain are fundamentally disrupted by a new business model—but it’s not always easy to find. Revolution represented the best of all of it; the property construction industry is as big as it gets, and their disruptive business model is real,” says Khailee Ng, 500 Startups managing partner.

Following the likes of “disruptive” companies such as Uber and AirBnB, Revolution Precrafted’s unique business model promises the best in architectural design combined with the latest in technological advancements in property development, such that it can finish projects at five times the speed of a traditional real-estate company and at nearly half the cost.

“There’s a plethora of developers all over the world and they do the same thing: They buy land, they build, they have different products. But I thought, if I’m going to create a different business line, it’s going to have to be extremely differentiated,” says Antonio. “I started looking at companies like AirBnB and Uber, and what they had in common was, No. 1, they’re global companies, they’re not pigeonholed into one region or country; No. 2, they don’t have any inventory. And they obviously use technology to disrupt.”

The company works exclusively with some of the world’s best architects as well as Pritzker Prize ones such as Zaha Hadid, Christian de Portzamparc, Paulo Mendes de Rocha and Jean Nouvel. Celebrity designers Tom Dixon, Lenny Kravitz and Daphne Guinness are also part of the company’s portfolio.

Revolution Precrafted provides the market prefabricated pavilions, homes, condos and hotels created by world-renowned architects at affordable prices.

 

Revolution Precrafted CEO Robbie Antonio—Arnold Almacen

To be the “Ikea of homebuilding.”

That, in a nutshell, is the mission of Filipino real-estate technology company Revolution Precrafted, which provides prefabricated property—pavilions, homes, condos, hotels—created by world-renowned architects at affordable prices.

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“We try to really be a plug-and-play [real-estate] company that saves people a lot of time and brain power,” says Revolution’s CEO Robbie Antonio of Century Properties fame. “I [also] want to make design accessible to everyone, not just the wealthy. Zara was built on the idea that luxury design should be available to everyone, as was Ikea. Revolution Precrafted is the platform for this vision—in property.”

And it’s a vision that has caught the attention not just of other real estate companies—so far, Revolution has booked five development projects worth P26 billion, equivalent to 5,000 homes—but also venture capital and investment firms such as 500 Startups, which provided the company’s first round of funding, and Indonesia-based Bakrie Global Ventura, which signed a $1.1-billion joint venture agreement with Revolution during the recent Asean Summit.

“[500 Startups is] always looking for large industries whose value chain are fundamentally disrupted by a new business model—but it’s not always easy to find. Revolution represented the best of all of it; the property construction industry is as big as it gets, and their disruptive business model is real,” says Khailee Ng, 500 Startups managing partner.

Following the likes of “disruptive” companies such as Uber and AirBnB, Revolution Precrafted’s unique business model promises the best in architectural design combined with the latest in technological advancements in property development, such that it can finish projects at five times the speed of a traditional real-estate company and at nearly half the cost.

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“There’s a plethora of developers all over the world and they do the same thing: They buy land, they build, they have different products. But I thought, if I’m going to create a different business line, it’s going to have to be extremely differentiated,” says Antonio. “I started looking at companies like AirBnB and Uber, and what they had in common was, No. 1, they’re global companies, they’re not pigeonholed into one region or country; No. 2, they don’t have any inventory. And they obviously use technology to disrupt.”

The company works exclusively with some of the world’s best architects as well as Pritzker Prize ones such as Zaha Hadid, Christian de Portzamparc, Paulo Mendes de Rocha and Jean Nouvel. Celebrity designers Tom Dixon, Lenny Kravitz and Daphne Guinness are also part of the company’s portfolio.

 

Revolution Precrafted provides the market prefabricated pavilions, homes, condos and hotels created by world-renowned architects at affordable prices.

“We own intellectual property, and that happens to be the world’s best architects with global exclusive licenses. Meaning you cannot hire Lenny Kravitz to do a house for you unless you go through Revolution,” Antonio explains. “The only other option is, you can do a customized house, which will cost you millions of dollars.”

The cost of Revolution’s homes starts at $30,000, or roughly P1. 5 million, and can be constructed in around three to six months. Condos and hotels, says Antonio, can be finished in around six months to a year.

The company works with a network of almost 300 prefabricators internationally, which use advanced robotics to create the homes’ modular pieces. Some are based here in the Philippines, a factor which helps lower the finished product’s cost.

“The Philippines’ best architects we’ve signed up already. I just signed one who does P150- to P200-milion homes in Dasmariñas and Forbes [villages], who I just challenged to do one for just P1 million. [He said], I am going to put you on my priority list because the fact that you’ve given me a parameter. This is exactly why I went into architecture school—I want parameters that will excite me,” Antonio shares.

“[The architects] are open [to doing to these projects] after serious nagging from me,” he adds in jest. “Well, with some that is the case, but really because it’s challenging and intriguing for them. It’s interesting for them because it’s so difficult to do.”

Now valued at $256 million, Revolution Precrafted is well on its way to becoming the Philippines’ first “unicorn,” or a startup with an estimated valuation of over $1 billion.

“I like this business because no one else is doing it. There’s no other branded housing developer in the world, prefab or not. Towers, I’ve done that. But for homes, no one has done that,” says Antonio.

The best part of Revolution, however, isn’t its valuation. For Antonio, it’s the fact that the company is run by Filipinos.

“We’re a Philippine company with global ambitions—and we’re proud to be domiciled here,” he says.

 

Could Revolution Precrafted Be The Philippines’ First Unicorn?

by Dinushi Diaz, Smart Company

After securing millions of dollars in funding from global tech giant 500 Startups, prominent Philippines property developer Robbie Antonio believes his one-year-old venture could soon become the country’s first unicorn — a company worth $1 billion.

Revolution Precrafted, which launched in December 2015, ships “precrafted homes” created by renowned designers like Lenny Kravtiz’s Kravitz Design to property developers and homebuyers around the world within 90 days of ordering.

“We’re changing the landscape of home building,” Antonio told Tech in Asia.

“Now you have the world’s best architects at your fingertips for an affordable price.

“We’re applying the home as an art concept as well. They’re collectibles.”

According to Tech in Asia, Antonio’s startup wasn’t even raising capital when global tech giant 500 Startups invested $US15.4 million ($20 million) in it earlier this month.

And why would it need investors, considering the business has generated over $US110 million ($143.3 million) in sales already?

Revolution Precrafted homes cost an average of $US120,000 ($156,331) a pop, and Antonio believes the global market opportunity for this is $US100 billion ($130.3 billion).

With the company now valued at US$256 million, Antonio said venture capital investors were super keen to get involved.

“I wanted to have a cross-border transaction business,” says Antonio.

“That’s what makes it really geared towards being, I believe, the first Philippine unicorn.”

500 Startup managing partner Khailee Ng said the deal, which also involved some angel investors, saw the investors fighting for a ‘yes’ instead of the founder.

“Our seed companies rarely have US$100 million [$130 million] product bookings and enough finances,” Ng tells Tech in Asia.

“[Revolution Precrafted] didn’t need to raise. I had to convince them to take my money for value-add, not cash.”

Antonio is also the managing director of Philippines-based family real estate group Century Properties and he ranks among the world’s top 100 art collectors, next to Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio and Sheikha Al-Mayassa, a member of Qatar’s ruling family.

“I’m almost obsessed with design and architecture,” Antonio said.

“I believe in design democratisation. It should not just be the upper echelons who should be able to afford great architecture.”