Side is a noted real estate start-up offering software and brokerage solutions to property agents. It has now raised $150 million in funding, valuing it at $1 billion as per reports. Coatue Management led the funding round which will boost Side’s abilities to compete with Compass, a stronger real estate brokerage solution that has already filed for going public sometime back as per apibased series coatue 1b 175mtechcrunch.
Side takes 10% of commissions paid out to real estate agents on its platform. The start-up is based in San Francisco and earned $30-50 million in revenues for 2021. It is targeting a doubling of revenues for 2022 and its valuation has zoomed exponentially over the last two years owing to increasing home-buying demand. This has been further fuelled by rising prices of homes on account of lower interest rate-driven demand and the entry of tech-friendly younger home buyers into the housing market. Side was valued at just $160 million in 2019 as per reports.
Real estate tech companies are in the news worldwide. Home sale and closing service provider Doma has already announced its merger with a SPAC (special purpose acquisition company), taking its equity valuation to $3.5 billion. Hippo Insurance and OfferPad (online buying and selling of housing units) both announced similar merger deals, taking their valuations to $6.2 billion and $3 billion respectively. Side majorly conducts business in the State of California, offering a comprehensive list of real estate solutions for agents, including tools for helping them develop their businesses and get payments swiftly.
Side has also been attempting to draw more real estate agents away from Compass as per several reports. This has led to several murmurs of big expansion plans at Side that are on the anvil. The latter has been scaling up its business by setting up physical offices in leading cities countrywide and generated $664 million in revenues for 2021, putting aside commissions and transaction-linked costs paid to its agents. The company last garnered private funding in the year 2019 at a valuation of $6.4 billion and is gearing up for its eagerly-awaited IPO. However, its IPO price range has not been declared as of yet. The existing list of investors at Side also includes Trinity Ventures and Sapphire Ventures. These fresh funds will help Side scale up its segment-wide presence, beef up its operational abilities, and take the competition to its bigger rival in several areas.
