Property site Zoopla wins investor award on the path to flotation

Property search site Zoopla has been voted Europe's 'most exciting investor-backed company' in advance of its widely expected initial public offering.

Zoopla hired investment bank Credit Suisse in early September to explore how the company can grow its business, which could include a listing on the London Stock Exchange. 

The six-year old site could be valued at as much as Ј1.3bn, reflecting growing house prices and a maturity in the tech startup space.

Venture capitalists at the Investor Allstars event run by investment bank GP Bullhound in London voted for Zoopla ahead of Rovio, the Finnish firm responsible for Angry Birds, and travel firm Secret Escapes.

Swedish payment service Klarna also lost out, as well as pet health store Medicanimal, French digital distribution service Believe Digital and Fly Victor, the marketplace for private jets.

To enter, companies had to be European, demonstrate growth of 100% over the past two years and show minimum revenue of Ђ10m in 2012.

Zoopla's chief executive Alex Chesterman said that since the site launched in 2008, it had helped to consolidate a market of 20 competing property websites into just two - with Right Move now Zoopla's only significant competitor online.

Chesterman, a co-founder of film rental service Lovefilm, said he had approached Zoopla's business with the same strategy of market consolidation.

"We set out with the same objective, to make consumers lives better by giving them a better experience and a greater selection," he said. 

"The consumer experience was poor - all those other players focused on UK property search classified ads in much the same way as newspapers had always done. But we focus on the peripheral information - what the house last sold for, what the schools are like and what newspaper the neighbours read. All this stuff is out there, in 18 places, so we just made it a one stop shop."

The property slump meant that Zoopla was able to buy 11 competitors in four years at relatively low value, closing those which duplicated its service and keeping open niche sites for new homes, overseas property and high end. It is due to open a new commercial property portal in December.

Zoopla has 40m monthly users, claims to generate 2.5m monthly leads for estate agents and, in August, recorded 46% of its monthly views on mobile. It is expected to generate Ј65m in revenues for 2013 and revenue growth of 20% per year, generated by subscription fees from estate agents and developers, display advertising and access to consumer data.

• In 2011, Zoopla added price heat maps to its tools.