SEATTLE, Nov. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Online real estate broker Redfin today
announced a $10 million series-D financing led by Greylock Partners. Existing
Redfin investors Madrona Venture Group, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Vulcan
Capital and The Hillman Company also participated in the round. This new
investment brings the total capital raised by Redfin to $30.8 million.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20070426/SFTH054LOGO)
The financing caps a 12-month span during which the real estate market
contracted but Redfin grew on several fronts:
-- Revenue exceeded a $20 million yearly run-rate and Redfin generated
its
first profits
-- Redfin shipped the highest-rated iPhone application for real estate
-- Site visits increased more than 200%
-- Total dollar-value of Redfin transactions since inception exceeded $2
billion
-- Redfin customer satisfaction remained at 97%
James Slavet, a partner with Greylock and former operating executive at Yahoo,
joins Redfin's board of directors. Greylock, which recently announced its
thirteenth fund, has supported hundreds of successful technology startups, 150
of which have gone on to public offerings. Among Greylock's current consumer
investments are digg, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pandora and Zipcar.
"Redfin prospered at a time when real estate valuations and transactions
plummeted," says Slavet. "Redfin has generated impressive operating
performance through product innovation and an obsession with customer service.
We are excited to help the Redfin team build a market-leading business in the
$1 trillion-dollar residential real estate industry."
Redfin plans to use the additional capital to scale its infrastructure for
delivering extremely high levels of customer service, to expand into new
markets and to invest in research and development.
"Greylock's experience developing some of the Internet's most recognized
consumer brands as well as its appetite for building large-scale public
companies are a perfect fit for our ambitions," says Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman.
"We believe that our ability to invest in technology and our consumer-first
commitment give us a shot at reinventing a very fragmented, sales-driven real
estate industry. Greylock has the resources, patience and guts to help us pull
that off."
Alan Smith, of the law firm Fenwick & West, represented Redfin in the
financing.
About Redfin
Having first launched its service in February 2006, Redfin (www.redfin.com) is
the real estate industry's first online brokerage. By combining a
customer-focused team of real estate agents with online tools Redfin makes the
process of buying or selling a home easy. Redfin is the only major search site
to feature listings direct from broker databases as well as for-sale-by-owner
and foreclosure properties from across the Internet. The company pays its
agents customer-satisfaction bonuses, not commissions, and surveys every
client, publishing each survey alongside details on the agent's deal history.
Redfin's service is available in the metropolitan areas of Boston, Chicago,
Seattle, Washington DC, Baltimore, New York's Long Island and Westchester
County as well as most of California, including the San Francisco Bay Area,
Southern California and Sacramento. To keep track of our daring exploits,
subscribe to blog.redfin.com or our Twitter feed @redfin.
About Greylock Partners
Greylock has partnered with entrepreneurs for 44 years to help them build
market-leading businesses. Among the companies Greylock has supported are
Ascend Communications, CheckFree, CipherTrust, Cloudera, Constant Contact,
Continental Cable, Decru, Data Domain, digg, DoubleClick, Facebook, Farecast,
Internet Security Systems, Ikanos, Legato, LinkedIn, Media Metrix, Millennium
Pharmaceuticals, Openwave, Open Market, Pandora, Red Hat, RightNow
Technologies, Success Factors, Tellabs, Trilogy, Wily Technology, Workday and
Zipcar.
Greylock operates in a number of global centers of innovation, including
Boston, China (Beijing), India (Bangalore), Israel (Herzliya) and Silicon
Valley. For more information about Greylock Partners, please visit
www.greylock.com or http://www.facebook.com/greylock.
SOURCE Redfin Corporation
Redfin, +1-206-819-7945, press@redfin.com; or Erika Brown of Greylock
Partners, +1-650-493-5525, ebrown@greylock.com
