AAA Lennar finds Opendoor in $135m round

Lennar finds Opendoor in $135m round

US-based online real estate marketplace Opendoor has received $135m in debt and equity financing from investors including home builder Lennar.

Lennar provided $100m in debt financing while Fifth Wall Ventures, the venture capital firm that counts Lennar as one of its anchor investors, supplied the $35m equity portion of the round.

Opendoor operates an online platform that helps users sell their property. The platform’s experts assists sellers in setting a price, and once fees have been agreed its staff conduct an assessment of the property to ascertain whether repairs or improvements are needed.

Buyers can meanwhile use the platform to search for homes in specific areas and book viewings. Should they decide to buy a property, Opendoor helps guide them through the process of making an offer on the home.

Brendan Wallace, co-founder and managing partner of Fifth Wall, said: “Seeing the opportunity for Lennar to be a ‘kingmaker’ for Opendoor and dramatically accelerate the company’s pace of growth, Fifth Wall brought these two firms together through this significant investment and helped orchestrate this partnership to address this market at scale.”

The round was initially announced through a blog post by another of Fifth Wall’s co-founders and managing partners, Brad Greiwe.

Opendoor has now raised a total of $455m since it was founded in 2014, $210m of which came in a late 2016 round featuring conglomerate Access Industries that valued it at more than $1bn post-money, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Norwest Venture Partners led the round, which included New Enterprise Associates, Khosla Ventures, GGV Capital, FifthWall, Lakestar, SVC Capital, Caffeinated Capital and Felicis Ventures.

Access Industries had already led the company’s $80m series C round, which valued it at $580m, in 2015. Opendoor’s earlier investors include SV Angel, Thrive Capital, Sherpa Ventures, Haystack Fund and the Mack Family.

-This article was amended on January 26, 2018 to reflect a press release issued by the companies.

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