News International has made a multi-million pound investment in a new property search engine in spite of already owning half of Propertyfinder. Financial Times

Globrix, an unlisted company, said it received funding for an advertising drive next year with reserves for its second and third years as it tries to establish a new search engine modelled on a news aggregation business.

Property search engines such as the market leader Rightmove usually charge estate agents to market their properties on the site.

Globtrix chief executive Daniel Lee said: “We see our model as more like a Google, where we gather all the properties available on the net and make our money by reserving part of the search page for advertising.”

Agents would have to opt out from having their listings included on the site, which will use “spider” search engine technology to guide customers to properties that fit their criteria.

News International, which owns half of Propertyfinder with an Australian partner, declined to comment on the deal and neither party was prepared to say how much money was involved.