Malcolm Myers is one of the world’s leading marketplace advisors, having dedicated 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 marketplace advisors EIV in 2010. Clients have included major strategic players such as Scout24 Group, Ringier, and AVIV, the largest PE funds, and about one hundred start ups seeking to raise capital or looking for new owners. EIV's work is truly global, and is increasingly focussed on the AI-native services platforms space, in addition to the core marketplace verticals of property, automotive, jobs, and re-commerce.
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/malcolmmyers/
Property Portals - At the Table or on the Menu?
Four years on from the GPT-3.5 launch, the traditional portal model is looking increasingly at risk. Real estate agents have an ever-growing choice of AI-powered partners to source them leads. LLMs and personalised AI agents are well-placed to occupy the top of the property seeker funnel, while the premium listing - the core revenue driver of the past - is looking increasingly out of place amongst highly personalized search results. Portal stock prices are down >30% since the 2025 conference.
But while AI brings in a new set a challengers, it also empowers property portals to break free from the “lead gen for subscriptions” paradigm. The opportunity to build totally new products to help seekers find better and smarter, and help property agents eliminate their admin burden and focus on converting the best leads, is large and real. But will portals, which until recently operated simple online publishing businesses, pull off the necessary transformation to become fully-fledged technology businesses in time?
