Real Estate Marketing & Beyond
Compass, a real estate technology company, today announced it has raised a $100 million Series E investment round with participation from Fidelity Investments, IVP, Wellington Management, and other global investors.
Compass is trying to reshape the home-buying process through the use of technology. A dashboard showing neighborhood data and a Pinterest-like app for organizing home listings would make real-estate agents more productive and therefore, more profitable, the company says of its main offering.
The site operates somewhat similarly to other online real estate listing sites like Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com, and Redfin, but Compass focuses on broker listings, and instead of generating revenue via ads, it takes a portion of the sale when a transaction is conducted through its platform.
According to data provided by the company, Compass’ agent population has increased by 500% in the last two years. It's also well on track to complete 16,000 transactions and over $14 billion in sales this year, with over $350 million in annual revenue, the company said.
"Compass is building the infrastructure, data and tools that will power the next generation of this industry," said Ori Allon, Founder and Executive Chairman of Compass. "This new funding will allow us to double down on our development of transformative technology, while fueling continued expansion into all of the top real estate markets in the country. Our long-term vision is for Compass to be everywhere as the world's largest real estate platform."
Target cities for the next wave of expansion include Atlanta, Austin, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, and Seattle. While rapid geographic expansion is one facet of Compass' growth strategy, the company also continues to add agents in its existing markets. With the additional investment, Compass will also enhance its platform by combining transaction, listing and client data to provide actionable intelligence and recommendations for agents.
The new investment brings the total capital raised to $325 million, giving it a whopping $1.8 billion valuation.
"Compass has proven that its technologically advanced platform is incredibly attractive to the industry's top agents," said Todd Chaffee, General Partner at IVP. "Their position at the intersection of technology and real estate gives them the unique opportunity to be the single largest holder of real estate data, ushering in a new realm of possibilities for agents and clients alike."
