Lhoopa: Affordable Housing Solutions for Every Filipino

Lhoopa is a cutting-edge investment venture utilizing technology to revolutionize the real estate sector in Southeast Asia and beyond. Their platform enables local workers, like-minded investors, and institutions to collaborate in providing affordable housing to deserving individuals on a large scale. Through their exclusive technology and by empowering local professionals, Lhoopa has established a streamlined, decentralized, and profitable approach to constructing affordable housing. Their ultimate goal is to enhance the lives of ordinary individuals by injecting the real estate market in emerging countries with abundant funding and innovative, tailor-made technology. With that, why don’t you join me in learning more about Lhoopa with its Founder, Marc-Olivier Caillot.

Can you give us a brief background about your funding journey? 

I'm originally from France. I worked on Wall Street for a while and also in Accenture Paris. While in New York, I met my wife and when she finished her graduate studies, we moved to the Philippines. We started a boutique I.T. firm, where we built websites and customized apps for large companies. While growing that company, I was constantly looking for new ways to build our own I.T. assets with the savings we made from profit. One of the last clients we had was a large real estate developer in the Philippines doing affordable housing. At that time, they were trying to find a way to grow their own business, so we decided to work together. For two years, I consulted for them and I put the money I earned to finance our first asset in Lhoopa. At the time, I was noticing how much the country was developing but also realized that the real estate industry was largely still so manual in their process. By 2017, I had enough money to start building more of our own assets and I focused on that and that was how Lhoopa got started. That was our first pre-seed, if you want to call it that. Basically I put my consultancy fee in as the pre-seed money. Right after, we started gaining a little bit of traction but it was still very small. But in just a year, we were already profitable and we have remained profitable since then.

We raised a seed round led by a local investor in 2020. Then we raised our series A round last year (2022) led by Wavemaker Partners and Patamar Capital.

What is Lhoopa and what makes it unique from its other competitors in the country and region? 

In the real estate and investment industry, a lot of people don’t believe that you can make affordable housing profitable. Most developers will focus on mid and high market properties. I think a big reason for this is because real estate, even if it's the largest asset class in the world, is operated in a very manual way. Regardless of whether you buy an affordable home or if you buy a mid-market home, the number of documents and payments you have to track from your clients is the same. But if the process is so manual, the entire potential profit on those units can get eaten up by the operating expense and all the costs they have to pay for it. 

Lhoopa is very different because what we do is to apply the same level of technologies that I was developing in Wall Street and Accenture to real estate. My background is not in real estate so I started the company by viewing things from a very different perspective. We built a system that directly empowers people on the ground. We give a chance to the small contractors and agents to work in the area where they live, and through our apps, we are able to give them opportunities for work and success. We have aspects in our system that function like a trading room and we monitor our processes through this. Through technology, we are also able to remove layers in real estate and this adds to our profitability. We  basically decentralize the real estate process, in the affordable housing space, through innovative tech- that's what makes us very different from the usual players. 

How exactly does Lhoppa provide affordable housing to deserving individuals on a large scale with the help of technology? 

In the Philippines, 60% of the population belongs to class C and D. They have employment and they want to buy a house. But this is not so readily available for them. In comes our technology and process: so first we analyze all the subdivisions and areas in the Philippines like you would analyze in stock trading. Then, we have our network on the ground who helps us find opportunities through our apps. Our system then, through algorithms, analyzes if properties are right for us to invest and build on to make affordable homes. Then through our app, our partner contractors help us inspect properties and provide us with more information to be analyzed. If all the data fits our investment criteria, we purchase it and then we tap our network on the ground again to help with the construction, sales, and customer management. We monitor all of this in real time through technology and in partnership with our network.

The byproduct of this new type of process and technology is the positive impact we can have on the people we work with and partner with. I come from a working class family and I’m actually the first person in my family to go to high school. So helping everyday workers is close to my heart. With Lhoopa, we have a chance to make this kind of impact. For example, 95% of our agents are women who work very hard to provide for their families, and we’re very proud to be part of their success. 

Why did you decide to fund Lhoopa instead of other technology-driven investment ventures? 

First, affordable housing is a worldwide problem. In the Philippines, there is a 6.4 million housing backlog. This is a huge problem. When I came to the Philippines, I saw that developments were taking place everywhere. By developments, I mean like housing, projects, and infrastructures. I felt like this could have been done better. I felt that what I learned in my past work experiences could bring another angle to it and view the situation and the possible solutions differently. Then I met the developers that I mentioned earlier, very kind and nice people who I ended up working with, and that opened up the chance to start this venture.  

Can you provide examples of successful stories that Lhoopa has helped to create?

Because our system allows us to decentralize the real estate process, I do believe we were one of the rare real estate players to continue working during the COVID lockdowns, because we stayed very local. During those days when things were so difficult for everyone because of the pandemic, we were still able to pay all our brokers and contractors and have our projects still moving. Our partners appreciated this a lot since the majority of them were highly dependent on us for their income and livelihood (especially since they are small contractors, so usually they do not get a chance with larger groups). We have people who grew their team from 5 to 40 people and brought in opportunities to their neighborhoods because they can work where they live.

One of our contractors, for example, had to find opportunities abroad before working with us. But because we were able to provide opportunities for him, he decided to stay in the Philippines and be with his family. But more than that, from his income from us, he was able to continually send his kids to school. He even sent us his child’s report card because he was so happy with the results. We were so honored to have been part of his family’s success. We have a lot of very heart-warming stories like that, because our partners and clients are really wonderful, hard working, deserving people.  We also do surveys that measure our impact. For example, 75% of our buyers did not know where else they could get their dream house apart from Lhoopa, and one wherein they could move in right away. This is what motivates us the most- hearing from people about how we were able to make a positive change in their lives through the work that we do.  

What plans do you have for the future of Lhoopa in the coming years? How do these plants contribute to the grand mission or purpose of Lhoopa?

When we got our series A, we started expanding in more cities in the Philippines. Last year, we bought in 52 different cities in the Philippines and we started expanding to Cebu and Davao as well. To grow further, we are doing a market test in Indonesia, still on a very small scale as of the moment. Part of our next round would be to show that we can deploy in more areas outside of the country with the Filipino talent we have. We are also venturing into green and resilient building, with our first project already certified by the World Bank. Finally, one of our ultimate goals is that beyond providing affordable housing, we would like to reduce poverty in the country, and lessen the number of people living in the lower social class, by giving everyone, even those with irregular or part-time employment only, a solid chance of owning their own home. We are currently discussing with different government and private groups to make this happen. We have so many other plans and new technologies to roll out and ideas of how to expand faster. That’s why we are considering raising a new round in the coming months. We’re so excited for what lies ahead! 

Marc-Olivier Caillot is the Founder of Lhoopa. Him and Sab are also Endeavor Entrepreneurs that got selected to the network last July at the International Selection Panel in Bali, Indonesia. Endeavor is the leading community of, by, and for high-impact entrepreneurs. In his pivotal role at Lhoopa, Marc’s primary mission is to support the development of affordable housing projects in the Philippines and the broader Southeast Asian region. He plays a critical role in making affordable housing projects a reality and addressing housing shortages in emerging markets. With fervor and dedication, he is passionate about sustainably developing housing projects and initiatives in the country, giving every Filipino a chance to own their house, affordably and sustainably.

Visit www.techshake.asia if you would like to know and connect more with Lhoopa.