Redfin now swims faster
By Anthony Longo 18 07 2007
Redfin, the now online real estate brokerage growing giant, has proven to the VC world they got something going on!
Online real estate broker Redfin Corporation today announced a $12 million series C financing led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Madrona Venture Group, Vulcan Capital, BEV Capital and The Hillman Company, investors in previous financings, also participated in this round. Redfin has raised $20.8 million to date. In conjunction with the funding, Redfin launched its online real estate service in the Washington, D.C. and Baltimore areas.
Redfin will use the proceeds to continue national expansion, with plans to open in Chicago this year, and to further the company’s investment in its market-leading website for buying and selling homes.
Since Redfin’s last round of financing in May 2006, the company has completed more than $350 million in real estate transactions, saved its home-buying customers nearly $6 million in commissions, increased revenues by more than 2,000 percent, expanded into four new markets, and been featured on “60 Minutes.”
As part of the funding, DFJ partner Emily Melton will join Redfin’s board as a director. Melton brings to the board experience opening new markets for another Seattle-based consumer start-up, InSpa.
“More than ever, the Web provides a deep understanding of a home and its neighborhood, which has empowered consumers to take charge of the home-buying and –selling process,” said Melton, who has been monitoring Redfin’s progress since early 2006. “As one of the only companies actually brokering transactions online, Redfin is driving this trend to its logical conclusion, delivering the most value to the consumer, and the most profound change within the real estate industry. With more than $60 billion in annual commissions at stake, the opportunity is enormous.”
“We expect this to be our last round of venture financing, so we looked for a guide on the long journey ahead who could help us generate profits and lead our market,” said Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman. “DFJ’s commitment to a consumer-centered business, its connections to Silicon Valley’s most advanced technologies, and its appetite for huge, competitive markets made us natural partners. We’re especially delighted to have Emily on board.”
The online real estate brokerage Redfin also launched their online real estate e-commerce service for the Washington D.C. and Baltimore areas, adding more than 50,000 property listings to Redfin.com. The company also opened its first East Coast headquarters in Falls Church, Virginia. Catherine Jardine, formerly of Long & Foster, was hired to lead local real estate operations.
For more information visit www.Redfin.com
Really? Would YOU want your home to be priced by someone who has potentially never seen the inside? Or experienced the superior showing ability of your home, and possibly comes up with an asking price based on what area homes have sold for…without taking into account the emotional “power” of your home?
Really? I think I would not like to list my home with someone who has never seen it.
I think showing ability, and the emotional “power” a home has to influence the sale price is such a valuable commodity, that I just don’t understand how a broker, possibly some 2000 miles away, can assess such an influential factor into the value of one’s home.