Redfin Raises $70.9M to Accelerate National Expansion

Seattle-based online real estate broker Redfin has raised $70.9 million in one of the Northwest’s largest funding rounds this year.

The investment was led by Wellington Management, at the head of a lengthy list of institutional investors.

Additional investors in the round—which follows a $50 million funding in November 2013 and brings total capital raised by the company to $166.6 million—include Glynn Capital Management, Brothers Brook, Annox Capital Management, T. Rowe Price Associates funds, and Tiger Global Management.

Redfin is plowing all this cash into market expansion and technology development. The company says it has doubled its footprint in the last year and now operates in 48 U.S. markets.

A Redfin representative sought to put the latest funding in context of several other large investments in companies focused on “reinventing the experience of the real estate transaction itself, not just the search.” These include the likes of Auction.com, which raised $50 million from Google in March; Urban Compass, which raised $40 million in July; and OpenDoor, which raised $10 million in July.

In other Seattle online real estate news, Zillow’s proposed acquisition of Trulia was approved by Zillow shareholders. More steps remain for that $3.5 billion deal to be finalized.

Author: Benjamin Romano

Benjamin is the former Editor of Xconomy Seattle. He has covered the intersections of business, technology and the environment in the Pacific Northwest and beyond for more than a decade. At The Seattle Times he was the lead beat reporter covering Microsoft during Bill Gates’ transition from business to philanthropy. He also covered Seattle venture capital and biotech. Most recently, Benjamin followed the technology, finance and policies driving renewable energy development in the Western US for Recharge, a global trade publication. He has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication.