Real estate search engine Trulia joins an elite Silicon Valley Club today with the announcement of $10m Series C funding in a round headed by Sequoia Capital.
Trulia moved out of beta earlier this month and launched a number of new features.
Sequoia is joined in the funding round by previous investors Accel and Fayez Sarofim & Co. The $10m takes Trulia’s total funding to $17.7million. The new money is being used for additional staff, product development and a new marketing push.
There’s a wealth of potential in the real estate market. Advertising spending alone in real estate will total $11 billion in the United States in 2007 (Borrell Associates), with over 80% of the consumers using the Internet as part of their home buying research.
Trulia is not alone in chasing this market. Zillow has raised $57 million and Redfin has previously raised $9 million in two rounds. Internet Brands also is also a competitor with Real Estate ABC.
Trulia’s main features include a comprehensive database of active real estate listings, price trend heat maps, and a Q&A service.
Well done Trulia people! Having Sequoia investing on your startup almost makes them a Killer Startup. Congrats!
P.S. We reviewed them last week http://www.killerstartups.com/.....ream-Home/
http://www.socialway.com - Good site to feature Micheal
Yea, I only heard about them from your coverage a few weeks back but in the interim I’ve had a chance to look a bit more closely. They have some really interesting features and since at least I haven’t seen any really interesting players in this space before, they might well be worth Sequoia’s attention. Congrats on the funding Trulia.
Real estate search, the next big thing in internet after Google?
Hardly…..The average Joe doesn’t care about real estate search online. At least not in Asia!
Regards,
Sumesh
Check out Zillow’s blog. They announced greater integration with Yahoo on its real estate channel. That’s a very smart move. Have one of the big giants on your side. Trulia seems a little naked with no real partnerships in this world. Last time I checked $57M raised (by Zillow) is still more (and better) then $17.7M raised.
I also think the Redin guys have a great model. So I can see why Zillow and Redfin will make out OK. Trulia, not so sure…
You just killed on DSL, CABLE MODEM, 56k speed. It took more than 5-6 mins get it load. You have cut off some javascript mashups.
I’m seriously. Why don’t you guys go try another locations?
Do you guys every test this speed rather than home location. It’s really, really, really slow.
You are guys trying to abusing Ads. Sometime it crashes IE, kickout line, etc.. You have take off something you don’t need on the web.
YOU GOT TERRIBLE TERRIBLE WEB SPEED. IT’S WORST THAN DOWNLOADING 3 MEG MP3s. You need test the speed.
People with 56K connections don’t count, especially with such poor english skills. You don’t have dsl or cable, you have dial-up, time to move out of the village.
Press Refresh. You will IE progressbar loads 4 times. It’s even worst than Forbes, Newsvines, Pageflakes, another startup page.
You have test this baby.
I’ve got 2mb cable and I live literally at the end of the earth..I’ve got no issues with the site loading times, occasionally there are peaks where it can be a little slow but 99 times out of 100 never an issue, and since I’m writing for TC I visit constantly so I do get plenty of practice.
Believe me, my brother have one of those superfast DSL. He paid $200 a month for business DSL.
You have try it in New York City. I’ve download MP3 versus techcrunch speed. You have to bring some techcrunch techie guys here and test in New York broadwidth.
I’m using home 56k.
Trulia is the best designed real estate site out there
Redfin is great for the tech crowd, but just searching for a property requires a bs in comp sci
Zillow is great too but it’s no trulia
You’ve got Google API MAP. Trulia cost $10 million dollar. What gives?
The amount of money rushing into the real-estate service industry is impressive. $57M to Zillow? Wow. I’m pretty sure they don’t need all of that capital, which just leads me to believe that VC’s are placing a pretty big bet… one that will likely pay off. Super Bowl ad, anyone?
BTW… This page loaded just fine for me. Check your router, or call your service provider - the problem is obviously on your end.
Trulia is the best place to find a home for sale. Period. If you’re an agent why wouldn’t you list it here?
Note: Well, I am on an 8mb connection… but that’s beside the point
Launching into a market that is about to hit a massive downturn and that will take years to recover doesn’t strike me as a great idea. Think ahead: who will want to buy a company like this in 3-5 years time when the property market is on a 15 year low?
Regardless of how good the company is, their timing is everything else but great…
The point here (I work part time in a Real Estate company here in Miami) is that this industry has a great potential on the international side. About 80% of our customers (for Miami Beach properties) are overseas. They are heavy investors, so, the easier it gets for international customers to search for properties and investments, the better. Services like Zillow and Trulia are key… This is one of the industries VCs are doing a great job.
Changing the US real estate model will be very very tough, given the barriers to entry that MLS/ licensing etc impose. To really crack it I think you need a real downturn in property prices and NOT a rising market. Which is handy, because that’s what’s surely coming. Just a thought…
Congrats to the trulia team on their funding round. We pitched them a while back for some consulting, and they clearly had a solid team & vision, and from where I’m sitting it looks like they’re executing well.
I think you guys don’t get it. Go to “http://www.century21.com/”
They provide maps, real estate licenses, etc.
I have very good question. There’s thousands of real estate websites across the U.S. People don’t understand why did the old dot com crashed. Many investors say you can’t put too much VC money on existing business.
Why do you believe VC did good job for investing existing real estate website?
1. What did Trulia invent?
2. What so good about Trulia?
3. What is business model for Trulia?
4. What is wrong with century21 website? They have it all…
zfan #5,
You should do some research regarding partnerships within the real estate space. I believe you’d change your opinion(s).
Wrong Timing #16,
Timing has nothing to do with it: people don’t stop moving because of a downturn. It might take them longer to sell, but if I, for example, took a job in another city, I am moving.
Not sure I get Trulia. They don’t have comprehensive listings so they’re not as good as a Movoto.com, for example.
They don’t take a piece of the deal like Redfin does. Nor do they offer a “make me move” commerce functionality the way Zillow does.
They don’t offer anything more than a mash-up with Google Maps, one with a truncated set of the available listings.
Where is the value in Trulia? Somebody explain the future cash flow scenarios. Where does the money come from? (And please don’t say real estate agents who pay for advertising. Anyone banking their business on real estate agents is doomed to fail b/c the agents’ days are numbered).
@22
Where does the money come from?
Wall Street & Chicago Stock Exchange where investors invest nature and crappy shits. Oil, Pork & Belly, iron, earth’s natural resource. You have Jewish money, Catholic money, Christian money, Buddhist money, and Islamic money all covert into one thing. Inside every dollar bill is say “In God We Trust” . Zillow & Trulia — These guys don’t trust god. They paid them to believe in God.
If they don’t believe in God. The company will go liquidation, bankruptcy, and go to hell. Spirits will bury them with lousy soil. Google believe in God. Microsoft believe in Satan. Micheal Dell believe in Hell. Verizon believe in Devil’s horn. Yahoo believe in dogs sex. AT&T believe in God’s testicles. Mike Arrington believe in free hamburger citiy.
Techcrunch isn’t even religion. It’s full of sheeps & Sheepdogs. Mike & Duncan will tell you f*ck off VC money and go build your startup.
@ #16 Wrong Timing:
“Think ahead: who will want to buy a company like this in 3-5 years time when the property market is on a 15 year low?”
Zillow? Redfin? They seem to me to be 2 potential acquirers in 3-5 years…-Metagg
#22. You are right on, but keep in mind that Trulia does have a business model and have chosen not to publicize it. Regarding technology, they’ve made a pretty site with sex appeal. A lot of features, but truncated and not unified. All of their features should be accomplished with one screen. Their biggest problem is not having all the listings, although most people using them don’t realize it. I have not done any studies, but my guess is they have less than 50% of all active listings. I could be off, but regardless, a home purchase is a major investment, and I want to see all available listings to make the best choice.
Keep on the lookout for a new RE site launching in June. They have kept real quiet, but words out they will blow Trulia and everything else out of the water. They have all the listings via IDX and will cover 200+ major metros within the next 6 months. Their front end blows alway Trulia. You’ll hear about them soon.
“Keep on the lookout for a new RE site launching in June. They have kept real quiet, but words out they will blow Trulia and everything else out of the water.”
I hope you’re not referring to Move.com’s stealth project. Those guys don’t have the product/developer talent to come close to what Trulia, Zillow can pull off.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Trulia and Zillow are making more net income than Move within the next year. Check out Move’s SEC filings on executive compensation if you want to see why none of the revenue is falling down to the bottom line…
Techcrunch, I was wondering; have you guys ever done a post on how companies actually spend all these millions? I can’t imagine what they could need it all for.
Nope. A brand new site entering this space without the bloated politics, committees, red tape, etc. getting in the way of development. Just a rock solid UI combined with important features never seen before. They will make some waves.
Given the information asymmetry in the real estate space, and the total size of this market opportunity, this investment comes as no suprise. Some regulation changes ( making this space more open ), coupled with some big innovations, could result in a very compelling product.
For everyone wondering about Trulia’s revenue model: they’re not very secretive about it. From their About page:
“How We Make Money. We make money through advertising, not lead generation. Here’s the story: real estate professionals and organizations currently spend around $11 billion every year on their marketing. Our business model is pretty simple—we create the best real estate search experience on the Web; you, your family & friends use us; real estate professionals and service providers advertise on our site; we continue to innovate to create an even better real estate search experience. Make sense?”
Trulia is a real estate aggregator / customized search engine. The main problem that Trulia is trying to solve is that there are “thousands of real estate websites across the U.S.” and Google is woefully inadequate for finding housing listings on those sites. The problem with the century21 website is that it only shows century21 listings. Your observation is like saying “why use Google news when there’s TechCrunch”? I take it that the answer is obvious.
Also, they don’t have anything to do with real estate licenses.
Finally, in regard to their revenue model: see the post above. And then compare with the latest figures from IAB: “Internet advertising revenues in the U.S. continued upward totaling $16.9 billion in 2006, a new annual record exceeding 2005 by 35%”
Trulia looks like a good web 2.0 app.
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