What Ietty does

Ietty is a Tokyo-based, privately-held proptech startup founded in 2012 that operates an online platform aimed at home hunters in Japan. The platform is built on proprietary, in-house-developed AI and chatbot technology designed to engage prospective buyers and renters in conversational property search, narrowing listings to those that match stated criteria. The company is led by founder and CEO Taihei Ogawa, with Takemi Ohama serving as Head of Technology, and operates with a headcount of 51-100 employees as of the most recent data.

Ietty has raised approximately $6.24M across four disclosed funding rounds spanning 2013 to 2017, drawing a mix of venture capital, strategic corporate, and financial-institution investors including iMercury Capital, Incubate Fund, YJ Capital, Investors Cloud, Robot Home, Dentsu Digital Holdings, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Venture Capital (MSIVC), Mizuho Capital, Sansei Capital, and — in its 2017 round — strategic backers CENTURY21 Japan and ITOCHU Corporation. The investor mix reveals a B2B2C orientation, with partnerships to established Japanese real-estate distribution channels layered on top of the direct consumer platform.

The business model combines a direct-to-consumer home-hunter interface with B2B distribution through Japanese real-estate incumbents (notably CENTURY21 Japan's franchise network and Robot Home). Public information on pricing, monetization mechanics (lead-generation fees, SaaS subscription, transaction commissions, listing fees), product surface beyond the chatbot, customer count, and revenue is unavailable in the source data — the company's public-facing WordPress blog is set to private, and ietty.co.jp is not crawlable in this dataset. No patents, awards, certifications, regulatory actions, or M&A activity are disclosed.

Name

Ietty

Website

https://ietty.co.jp

Company type

Private

Founded year

2012

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

51–100 employees

Short description

Ietty is a Tokyo-based proptech startup founded in 2012 that operates an online platform using in-house-developed AI chatbots to help home hunters in Japan find and evaluate residential property listings.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Real Estate Technology

NAICS

Offices of Real Estate Agents and Brokers (53121), Web Search Portals and All Other Information Services (51929)

SIC

Real Estate Agents & Managers (For Others) (6531), Real Estate (6500)

akta.pro primary industry

Vertical/Specialty Search (e.g., jobs, real estate, travel, products) (BPAMAAAD)

akta.pro secondary industry

Recommendation & Discovery Engines (content/product) (BPAMAAAG)

Keywords

• Real estate platform
• AI property search
• Home hunting chatbot
• Property technology
• Real estate AI

Headquarters

HQ city

Tokyo

HQ country

Japan

HQ region

Asia

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Core offering

Ietty operates an online platform that assists home hunters in finding real estate properties. The platform leverages in-house developed artificial intelligence and chatbot technology to streamline the property search process for users looking to buy or rent homes in Japan.

Product overview

No product or service information available in the provided source data. The source content indicates a private WordPress site (iettyblog.wordpress.com) with no public company information, product descriptions, or service offerings.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Ietty Home Hunting Platform Online platform that uses proprietary AI and chatbots to help individual home hunters search for real estate properties in Japan.

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• LIFULL: LIFULL operates Japan's largest online real estate and housing search portal (formerly HOME'S) and Homes.co.jp. It is the closest direct competitor to Ietty given the same Japan-focused online home-hunting vertical.
• SUUMO (Recruit): SUUMO, operated by Recruit, is Japan's dominant housing and real estate search platform across rental and purchase. It competes with Ietty for the same Japanese home-hunter audience and listing supply.
• AtHome: AtHome runs a major Japan-focused real estate listing portal serving both rental and sale markets, with strong agency relationships. It is a direct competitor in the same online home-discovery vertical.

Broad incumbents

• Yahoo!不動産 (LY Corporation / Yahoo Japan): Yahoo!不動産 is a Japanese real estate search portal offered by a major general internet platform. It competes with Ietty for traffic and listing visibility from incumbent-portfolio strength rather than specialization.
• Rakuten Real Estate: Rakuten Real Estate is part of Rakuten's broader marketplace ecosystem. It offers Japan-focused property search as one component of a larger platform, overlapping directly with Ietty's core offering.
• Redfin: Redfin is a U.S. tech-enabled real estate brokerage with a strong search portal. Its combination of listing tech and brokerage services makes it a useful benchmark for AI-driven buyer tools, though the U.S. market dynamics differ from Japan.
• Zillow Group: Zillow is the largest U.S. online real estate marketplace and a global PropTech benchmark. While geography differs, Zillow's vertically specialized search/discovery model is the global analogue for Ietty's platform model.
• Compass: Compass is a U.S. tech-enabled real estate brokerage platform. Its agent-facing and consumer-facing tools are a useful incumbent analogue for Ietty's hybrid AI/data-driven approach to home hunting.

Emerging players

• Doorstead: Doorstead is a tech-enabled property management startup using data-driven tools to streamline residential real estate services. It is an adjacent emerging PropTech comparable in applying technology to consumer-facing real estate workflows.
• Mitula Group (LIFULL group): Mitula is a vertical search engine for real estate, cars, and jobs that was acquired by LIFULL. It validates the vertical-search business model that Ietty pursues at the country level.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights5 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/ietty

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds4 records

Investors11 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Ietty