Real estate startup Opendoor made headlines once again this past week with news of a substantial funding round — $400 million from the SoftBank Vision mega-fund, bringing its venture capital funding raised to over $1 billion. And though the company is headquartered in San Francisco, it says it will be using this large pool of capital to invest substantially in its Atlanta technical presence as well.
Opendoor, which opened its Atlanta office in early 2017, designated the city as its second engineering hub this past summer. They currently employ more than 100 in the city, with plans to grow that number by 50 percent in 2019.
Opendoor will focus on hiring engineers, designers and product managers to support their technology and product roadmap. The five-year-old company’s mission to simplify and streamline the home buying and selling process immediately resonated with local users, Atlanta Engineering Lead Atlee Breland told Hypepotamus in an interview earlier this year.
The company is now the largest acquirer of single-family homes in both the Atlanta metro area and the U.S. overall; they have served more than 20,000 customers total. The platform lessens the dependence on real estate brokers by allowing sellers and buyers to conduct transactions entirely online — and quickly.
On average, it takes Opendoor 90 days to buy and sell a home — sellers receive an offer within 24 hours, and buyers can set up home visits any time of day, any day of the week.
To accommodate their growth, Opendoor will be moving into a new office at 75 Marietta Street NW, the original headquarters of the Georgia Railway and Power Company, which can hold hundreds of employees, according to a company spokesperson. The office is in the build-out phase now and expects to move in within the next 60 days.
Though Breeland will remain Engineering Lead, Opendoor is also currently hiring for a General Manager who will head up all Atlanta operations.
Atlanta is not the only office the company will be expanding — they have added 500 employees globally this year and plan to reach a 1000-person headcount by year-end. They also have said they will speed up their market expansion process, increasing the number of cities they transact in from the current 19 to 50 by 2020.
“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, in a statement. “We believe that Eric [Wu, Opendoor CEO] 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.”
SoftBank has also invested in Uber, DoorDash, WeWork, Bird, and many more big names in the tech world.
