Redfin is a residential real estate company founded in 2004 in Seattle that offers web-based real estate brokerage and data services. It charges lower listing fees for home sellers of 1.5% compared to the industry standard of 3% by using technology to reduce costs. Redfin realtors are also paid based on customer reviews rather than commissions. The company has raised over $96 million in venture funding since 2006 from investors like Madrona Venture Group, Vulcan Inc, T. Rowe Price and Tiger Global, with its last funding round in 2013 valuing Redfin at $500 million. The CEO has hinted at a potential IPO.

1. 441 Company Presentation: Amiya Diwan

2. Overview
• Founded in Seattle in 2004 by Glenn Kelman
• Residential Real Estate Company
• Offers Web-based database and brokerage services

3. Product- Brokerage Services
• Use of technology allows Redfin to charge 1.5% listing fee for home seller,
compared to traditional industry fee of 3%
• Redfin realtors are paid based on customer reviews, not commissions

4. Product- Data and Analytics

5. Financial Timeline
• 1M in initial funding from Madrona Venture Group
• 8M in Series B funding from Vulcan Inc in 2006
• Most recently in 2013, Redfin raised 50M in a mezzanine round led by T.
Rowe Price and Tiger Global, bringing total venture funding to 96M
• The last round of funding was estimated to give Redfin a 500M valuation.
CEO has hinted company may IPO soon, during interview in April 2015

6. Competitors
• Traditional Real Estate Brokerages (brokerage business)
• Zillow / Trulia, Realtor.com
• Palantir, Qadium

7. What’s Hot!

8. Secret Sauce
• Realigning realtor incentives to better the customer
• Collects very specialized, unique data on very fine-grained homebuyer actions
• Hiring top machine learning talent with the aim of creating the best predictive
technology in the domain space

9. My Views on Redfin
• Brokerage business model tied too closely to cycles in the real estate market
• Realtor compensation model will disrupt the industry
• If Redfin can grow their data services business, this will be the real driver of
their success