Opendoor, the nation’s fastest-growing online real estate marketplace – which is radically simplifying the way people buy and sell homes – today announced a $400M investment from the SoftBank Vision Fund. The company also announced it has secured access to more than $2B in debt financing from top banks. As it rapidly expands to new markets across the U.S., Opendoor will use the funds to accelerate development of the first technology platform to make it easier to buy, sell and trade-in homes with one seamless transaction. SoftBank Investment Advisers’ Jeffrey Housenbold will join the Opendoor board of directors.
“We’re thrilled to partner with SoftBank — they are visionaries with the ambition to transform entire industries,” said Eric Wu, Founder and CEO of Opendoor. “SoftBank understands that the traditional process of buying and selling a home is complicated, uncertain, and stressful for millions of people, and that Opendoor radically improves the experience. We’re excited to widen our ambitions as we launch new products, expand our services, and build an end-to-end experience for millions of people moving each year.”
Empowering People with the Freedom to Move
Since its founding in 2014, Opendoor has reinvented traditional home buying and selling to make it online, instant, and stress-free.
• For home selling, rather than deal with the hassle and uncertainty of the traditional process that typically takes 90 days and has a 10 percent chance of falling through, Opendoor customers receive an online offer within 24 hours and sell with complete control and flexibility.
• For home buyers, Opendoor makes buying on-demand and enables customers to visit, shop, and purchase homes 7-days a week — all from their mobile phone.
• For trade-in customers, Opendoor is replacing the process of managing two separate transactions and risk of a double move with one seamless experience.
“Real estate is the biggest asset class in the U.S. and the biggest transaction in people’s lives, but its digital transformation is only beginning,” said Jeffrey Housenbold, Managing Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers. “We believe that Eric and his team are redefining home buying and selling by rethinking the status quo and providing a faster and more seamless experience for the customer.”
Opendoor will use the additional capital to accelerate a number of technology initiatives, including:
• Developing a platform to buy, sell or trade-in a home in 1-click, starting with the integration of the recently acquired Open Listings buyer platform.
• Integrating additional services such as title and mortgage to make the transaction seamless.
• Investing in market-level pricing models across more than 50 cities to accurately price billions of dollars of real estate in real-time.
• Building applications that support and drive efficiencies across an ecosystem of local vendors – including contractors, landscapers, painters and home cleaners.
Total Raised Now $1.045 Billion in Equity and $2B in Debt Financing
The Vision Fund investment of $400M is in addition to financing Opendoor previously raised from leading homebuilders, REITs and equity investors. Opendoor investors include Access Technology Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue Management, General Atlantic, GGV Capital, Invitation Homes (a leading property owner of homes for lease in the U.S.), Khosla Ventures, Lakestar, Lennar Corporation (the leading homebuilder in the U.S.), NEA, Norwest Venture Partners, 10100 Fund and others. Total funding for Opendoor includes $1.045B of equity capital and $2B in debt financing.
SoftBank Investment Builds on Year of Growth
Opendoor has grown rapidly this year with a focus on new market expansion, hiring and investment in new technologies, products and services. Since January 2018, the company:
• Expanded services from 6 to 19 cities – on its way to 50 markets in 2020
• Saw 1 in 2 true sellers who receive an offer choose to sell to Opendoor, up from 1 in 3
• Reduced the average fee to home sellers to 6.5 percent
• Increased its annualized acquisition run rate to $3.8B, up from $1.2B in January
• Grew the homebuilder trade-in program with Lennar and other homebuilders to enable over $875M in annualized sales for builders.
• Acquired online home buying platform Open Listings
• Opened an engineering and design hub in Atlanta
• Added 500 employees, with an expectation of reaching 1,000 by year-end, as the company continues to support rapid market expansion
