Zillow Raises Another $25 million
Michael Arrington
33 comments »
Seattle-based Zillow, which raised $32 million in funding in 2005 from Benchmark Capital and Technology Crossover Ventures, has raised another $25 million. This round of capital comes from a new investor, Boston-based Par Capital Mananement. No word on valuation. This comes on the heels of a recent (and massive) distribution deal with Yahoo.
Zillow, essentially a mashup of maps and historical real estate sales information, has now raised a whopping $57 million in capital. Other than supporting their 118 employees, it’s unclear what they plan to do with the money. John Cook has good information on Zillow’s recent stats, noting that in June the company had 2.1 million unique visitors, ranking 11th among real estate Web sites.
Note that Jobster, another Seattle startup, has also recently completed a large financing, bringing their total to nearly $50 million raised.
Anyone else worried by the amount of companies you have never heard of who are making a ton of money? I can’t help but feel lleft out..
Yes. But then I remember what they most likely have to give up to get that kind of funding, and I sleep a little easier.
what do they give up??
I don’t get it 118 that do what? 188 programmers?
They dont take orders or make sales… ???
It is fun to anticipate, these guys are masters of suspense. Of course the real estate industry is stuck in old and profitable models. That makes it even more fun. Perhaps they are going to out Google Google or out List Craig. Neither is that high tek really. LarrY Cragun
Dear Michael
Any word on how they plan to earn back any of that investment.
And any word on how they are keeping any of those employees except the 3 required to maintain the website and info bussy?
I actually prefer Trulia or http://www.hauteportfolio.com They are better sites and easier to use. This is another dotcom bust in my humble opinion
118 employees ? More than $50 million ?
All that begins to remind me more and more of the Internet Bubble…
For what its worth, this past weekend I demo’d Zillow to several family members (ages 50-60) and all were amazed at the service it provided and the value of some of their homes. Since we are currently in transition and seeking a permanent home in a brand new state, this a really helpful service for us, especially just to understand the home sale trends in an area (zip, city, county, etc.). Glad to see a great service, that millions will appreciate, getting the financial attention it deserves.
-pjc
I think this couuuld be a helpful site when looking at homes. The main issue I have with it is the fact that a lot of the listings are not up to date with current home improvements or additions. I don’t think you can rely on the people searching for homes to update this information for them because who wants to take the time if you’ve already gotten the new information for yourself (and then potentially give the information away to other buyers). Perhaps the 118 employees are working to update this information and haven’t gotten to my area but that was just my experience with the site.
What we all have to remember is that consumers LOVE it, so though the traditional real estate industry hasn’t embraced Zillow, the public has. They’re doing something right. Are they a little bloated in size? Maybe, but only time will tell.
How much has Jigsaw (www.jigsaw.com) raised to date? Are they in this same category?
I question how much they can make off advertising alone… Redfin has at least expanded to become a discount broker. I Interviewed Lloyd Frink, Zillow’s CTO (http://www.npost.com/interview.jsp?intID=INT00149) about their business model and he left it pretty open. What does everyone else think they will do to drive incremental (hopefully profitable) revenue?
for that kind of VC investment, they might be going for an IPO. or the VCs just cannot exit. i couldn’t think of anyone who would buy zillow at the new valuation(over 100 mil).
Zillow is fun as a google map mashup…I would say the best of these map mashups…but there’s no business plan here.
I’ve located my house and was pleasantly surprised at the value they claim it is and it’s fun to spend a half hour looking for your friends homes…but would I sell my house through zillow? would I take their assessment seriously? Not now. If I want to sell my house, I would do it through a broker.
Unless zillow can break the real estate mafia, it will have no way of recouping this VC investiment. If they can break the mafia and reach critical mass, i.e. become the ebay of real estate, then they will be huge. As Rummy states, it’s a long hard slog.
MOVOTO is cooler than Zillow. Check it out at http://www.movoto.com
at least those 118 are keeping busy. socketsite has the scoop on the new Zmobile feature (’zestimates’ via email):
http://www.socketsite.com/arch....._soon.html
Obviously they are going for an IPO. What is the next market buzz, big moo, is the question.