Good Morning Dear MMS Reader, Like with everything else in the age of the internet, millennials like me distinctly remember the Before and the After when it comes to house-hunting. The Before involved a pile of newspapers, countless phone calls and house visits. I have fond memories of cruising down city roads in search of “to-let” boards. The After, however, has none of this. Maybe the phone calls and physical rental agreements, but startups are trying to make those redundant as well. You see, it’s the age of the full-stack. And proptech—property tech—is heading there at full speed. Leading the pack is an eight-year-old startup called Square Yards, which offers a string of services and products in its quest to become a one-stop shop in the proptech space. It’s carefully cherry-picking the segments it wants to invest and grow in. It acquired Mumbai-based Azuro last year to shore up its property management credentials. In February this year, it bought PropsAMC for its data management capabilities. Barely a month later, it followed that up with the purchase of PropVR for virtual, 3D property tours. And it tied all this up by launching an in-house interior design arm in May 2021. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. It also offers a slew of other services that have now seemingly become a mainstay of any property portal—information on land prices, home loans, property inspections, registration services, digital rental agreements, online rental payments, you name it. Last month, it raised $25 million in a growth financing round from Hong Kong-based ADM Capital. What Square Yards is doing isn’t new, however. Legacy players like MagicBricks and its newer cousins No-Broker and Housing.com have also realised the potential of going full-stack. But they’re going in an entirely different direction. Meanwhile, the grandfather of the proptech space, 99acres, is waiting and watching. But if everyone’s going full-stack, what’s the differentiator? And at the end of the day, is it even worth it? Revenue from these services is nearly insignificant. With the real estate market expected to touch $1 trillion by 2030, however, no one’s taking any chances...