Malcolm Myers is a marketplaces advisor, who has spent the last 15 years buying, selling, and raising capital for online marketplaces. He started his marketplaces career as Head of M&A at Prosus/Naspers, and then founded European Internet Ventures in 2010. Clients have included major strategic players such as Scout24 Group and Ringier, the large PE funds and Investment Banks, and about one hundred start ups seeking to raise capital or looking for new investors. EIV’s work spans 6 continents, early and later stage businesses, and marketplace verticals including automotive, property, jobs, groceries, pre-owned fashion and collectibles.
Will AI build or break Asia’s property portals?
Outside of Singapore and Malaysia, dominant advertising portals, so common in Europe (Rightmove, Scout24, Hemnet, Otodom etc.), have been a long time coming.
Relatively fewer secondary market transactions, lower average property prices, and a shortage of professional real estate agents combine to create headwinds for the subscriptions-based, agency-focussed model.
Now both chat-based property searches on LLMs, and AI native property marketplace startups risk diverting users and agents from the portals. In his presentation, Malcolm Myers will assess the threats AI poses property portals in South and Southeast Asia, and identify how portals can best position themselves for the next phase of AI-powered property search and transactions.
