The View Media Group unveiled in August by Antony Catalano and Alex Waislitz, co-owners of media company ACM, has acquired leading proptech firm The Today Business.
A provider of digital marketing and technology solutions for the property development sector and the residential real estate market, The Today Business already works closely with Australia's third-largest property portal realestateview.com.au and other parts of the View Media Group (VMG), as well as ACM, the publisher of this masthead.
With 72 per cent of realestateview.com.au, a shareholding in utilities connections platform Beevo and the largest stake in data and AI business Propic, VMG announced in August an investment from Seven West Media that would position it to reach more than 90 per cent of the Australian population every month.
In a statement, VMG said The Today Business, which was founded four years ago, had been acquired in full for an undisclosed sum.
VMG executive chairman Antony Catalano said the transaction brought "not only Australia's best lead-generation platform into the group but a team of people that are the best in the business, led by experienced real estate tech executives Simon Kent and Trent Casson".
"The tech within The Today Business has proven itself by delivering high volumes of quality leads for residential agents and developers with minimal wastage. They've succeeded in creating a low-friction solution for agents and vendors to efficiently connect to buyers wherever and whenever they are.
"This is a critical part of the property ecosystem we are building at VMG as it establishes relationships at both ends of the property sales transaction."
Positioning itself as a major player in Australia's competitive and lucrative real estate media and technology sector, VMG's rapid expansion is being underpinned by more than $100 million in cash and media support from Mr Catalano, Mr Waislitz and Seven West Media.
The Today Business managing director Simon Kent said joining VMG's "collective of associated businesses" would drive "enhanced value and importantly end-to-end seamless solutions for our clients and property buyers".
"We are thrilled to be joining VMG on what is an incredibly exciting path in front of us," Mr Kent said. "Having worked with Antony for many years at Domain, and more recently as chairman of The Today Business, we are fully on board with his vision for VMG and his approach is the perfect fit for our business and our growth plans."
General manager of The Today Business Trent Casson said take-up of the firm's proprietary digital marketing solutions was enjoying strong momentum.
"We've had extraordinary growth over the past four years expanding our footprint from Melbourne to Sydney and more recently into Brisbane," Mr Casson said.
"The challenging market conditions of the last few years has taught us that an agent's digital acquisition strategy needs to be at the forefront of their thinking. This has really sharpened our focus and that of our clients and partners.
"The highly effective platform we built called Acquire is our performance marketing solution that can be white-labelled and fully integrated within a residential agent's website and CRM to automate vendor campaigns, agent branding campaigns and project marketing campaigns.
"It helps agents not only find potential buyers but critically find their next listing as well, complementing the traditional portal strategy and ensuring that the total potential buyer pool is reached in every campaign."
Mr Catalano, who is also executive chairman of ACM, said The Today Business was "the first of many announcements VMG expects to make as we continue to build out our property ecosystem that will push hard into the $300 billion real estate transactional market".
"I'm personally really looking forward to Simon and Trent joining the VMG executive team and bringing their wealth of experience in the property sector to VMG and the businesses within it," he said.
