HomeLight, a company that operates a real-estate technology platform, today announced it had secured $100 million in Series D funding and $263,000,000 in debt financing.
Zeev Ventures was the return backer. The equity round also included participation by Group 11, Stereo Capital and Menlo Ventures, as well as Lydia Jett from the SoftBank Vision Fund. The total amount raised by the San Francisco-based company since 2012's inception is now $530 million. HomeLights' equity financing will bring its valuation to $1.6billion. This is nearly three times what it was in November 2019, when it raised $109m in debt and equity through a Series C.
Zeev Ventures was the lead in this funding round as well as its Series B in 2015.
Drew Uher, HomeLight founder, CEO, predicts that the company's annual revenue will triple to more than $300 million by 2021. Basic math shows that the company generated around $100 million in revenue in 2020.
HomeLight's model has changed over the years like other real-estate tech platforms. Homelight's first product used artificial intelligence to match real estate investors and consumers to agents. The company now provides title and escrow services for agents, home sellers, and sellers matched with iBuyers. HomeLight purchased Eave in July 2019 as a way to enter the increasingly crowded mortgage lending market.
Uher stated that our goal is to eliminate as much friction from the buying and selling of a home.
HomeLight's flagship financial products, HomeLight trade-in and HomeLight cash offer, were launched in January 2020 by HomeLight. Uher stated that the pandemic has fueled a significant increase in those products' sales by more than 700% since then.
HomeLights Trade In product gives clients more control over their move and the ability to transact. Cash Offer allows people to make cash offers on homes even if they have to get a mortgage.
Uher explained to TechCrunch that the pandemic highlighted many of the problems in the real-estate transaction process, which we have been working hard to solve since our inception. Even without the global pandemic, buying and selling a house can be a difficult task due to the industry's historical information asymmetry, outdated processes, and high costs.
In August 2020, Disclosures.io was acquired by the company and HomeLight Listing Management was launched. This allows agents to easily share information about their properties, monitor buyer interest, and manage offers from one central location.
HomeLight named Sean Aggarwal, former Trulia CFO, as Lyft chairman in June 2021.
After his wife and he felt the pain of trying for a home in the Bay Area's competitive market, Uher started HomeLight.
Uher said that the process of purchasing a San Francisco home was so difficult it made me want bang my head on the wall. Before finding the right match, I tried several real estate agents. When I finally found one, it gave me the confidence to compete with other buyers and won.
HomeLight was founded with one product: its agent matching platform. It uses machine-learning algorithms to analyze millions upon millions of real estate transactions. It claims that it connects a client with a real agent every 90 seconds.
Uher stated that thousands upon thousands of agents applied to join the HomeLight network over the years and that the company has helped more than 1 million sellers and buyers in the U.S. today. The company is close with 28,000 top agents all across the country. HomeLight insists it isn't trying to replace real-estate agents but rather works more in collaboration with them.
Uher stated that the company will use its new capital to expand its Trade-In operations and Cash Offer operations to new markets. The HomeLight Trade In and Cash Offer are available in California and Texas, and more recently in Colorado.
Uher stated that we plan to grow as fast as possible across the country. We plan to increase our hiring in 2021 and beyond.
HomeLight currently has more than 500 employees, compared to 350 at the beginning of last year. The company currently has offices in Scottsdale and Arizona, New York, Seattle, Tampa and San Francisco. It plans to open additional locations throughout the United States in the near future.
Oren Zeev is a founding partner of Zeev Ventures. He believes HomeLIght has the best position to revolutionize the agent and client experience.
Zeev sent an email to say that many proptech companies have begun building products that take agents out of the transaction process. HomeLight is in a unique position to disrupt the industry.
