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).
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.
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. .
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.
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