Disruptor property startup in liquidation, owes $688,000

Revalu8, a Queensland startup that calls itself the “Uber of real estate”, has sunk into liquidation less than a year after launch.

Creditors decided to wind up the Queensland startup and appoint a liquidator at a meeting last week, with a software company that was developing its online platform owed more than $486,000 out of total debts of $687,938, according to the Business Insider.

The company also owes $13,000 to Broadband Solutions and $11,000 to the Australian Taxation Office. In addition,  OLJ Capital was listed in the creditors meeting as being $120,000 out of pocket

Revalu8 was launched last June with $1.5 million in seed funding.

Its mission was to connect buyers and vendors of residential real estate and bring transparency to the industry. The site contained comparison tools for potential buyers, as well as promising complete transparency on transactions and negotiations between the buyer and the vendor.

“The accepted practices of advertising and selling real estate in Australia favour the advertiser, agent and then the seller, while the buyer is almost forgotten – despite it being the buyer’s money,” founder and chief executive Chris Bilborough said at the time. 

“ReValu8 will bring a new level of transparency to the industry to empower purchasers – in particular first-home buyers and investors – to be able to make an informed decision… ReValu8 also gives buyers a fair share of fees that would otherwise go towards advertising costs and agent commissions.”

While the Revalu8 website is currently still running, filling in a contact form to “join the revolution” results in an error, according to the Business Insider. The company Twitter account has not been active since August.

The company’s website still says, ‘The Uber of real estate has arrived’ and says the company shares the sales commission when a property is sold.

The notice to place the company in liquidation was resolved on March 20.

There was no comment from liquidator Worrells and Revalu8.

According to CRN, a dispute between the startup’s directors and the software development firm Agile Software Services saw the developer withdraw Revalu8’s access to the programming code.