Opendoor Aims To Raise $200M More At $3.7B Valuation

Online real estate company Opendoor is reportedly seeking to raise another $200 million at a valuation of about $3.7 billion, according to TechCrunch.

Another mega round of funding is not such a big deal these days. But another mega round of funding when a company has already raised two such rounds in the past eight months is notable.

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Last June, San Francisco-based Opendoor raised $325 million in new financing in a Series E round led by General Atlantic and Access Technology Ventures. At that time, the company was valued at over $2 billion. Then in September, it raised another $400 million, this time from the SoftBank Vision Fund. At that time, the company noted its total funding included $1.045 billion of equity capital and $2 billion in debt financing.

It’s not clear if the new financing it is reportedly seeking, according to papers filed in Delaware obtained by TechCrunch, would come in the form of an outside round, or a conversion – or a mix of the two. It is also unclear if Opendoor has yet raised the money.

Founded in 2014, Opendoor aims to make buying and selling real estate faster with its online platform. The idea is that with a few clicks online or on a smartphone, people can sell their homes to Opendoor, which uses market data to come up with an offer, conduct home assessments, and sell the home to a future buyer.

Why the company would need to raise nearly $1 billion in less than a year’s time is not known. But according to a press release Opendoor issued last September, it does have strong growth ambitions. At that time, the company said it had served more than 20,000 customers.

More examples of Opendoor’s growth, per the company, from January to September:

• Grew the number of markets it serves from 6 to 19 with the goal of being in 50 markets by the end of 2020.
• Increased its annualized acquisition run rate to $3.8 billion, up from $1.2 billion.
• Added 500 employees, bringing its total to 900.
• Acquired online home buying platform Open Listings.
• Opened an engineering and design hub in Atlanta.

While the housing market may have cooled in some cities, investor appetite for startups working to give buyers and sellers more options has not. In January, we covered how Knock raised $400 million to help make trading in your home as easy as it is to trade in your car. Also last month, I wrote about how REX, an online real estate brokerage using AI and big data had raised a $45 million Series C.

I’ve reached out to Opendoor and will update this story if they get back to me.

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias