IPO plans
Major real estate company Compass, which provides technology solutions for real estate transactions in the US, has reported 55% revenue growth and plans for an IPO.
Compass, a technology start-up in US residential real estate, on Monday announced plans to float on the US stock market.
Compass' digital platform provides technology tools and services to help real estate agents grow their businesses and better serve their clients.
Compass was founded in 2012 by Ori Allon, the former chief technology officer of Twitter (TWTR), and Robert Reffkin, formerly of Goldman Sachs (GS).
Compass has about 4% of the US residential real estate market and its business covers 46 agglomerations. Compass has more than 18,000 agents on its platform and offices in many states.
The company earns revenue from commissions on transactions made on the platform.
Compass agents were involved in $91.2bn worth of home sales in 2019, double the year before. According to the company, the total amount of transactions that Compass agents completed exceeded $300 billion from more than 275,000 home buyers and sellers. Given an average deal size of $1.09m and a minimum house price of $1.25m on the company's web page Compass specialises in high-end homes and markets.
The company's revenues
Last year, the US residential property market grew strongly as the Covid-19 pandemic and quarantine restrictions forced people to work from home.
According to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller house price index, national house prices rose 10.4% in December compared with a year earlier.
Compass' 2020 revenues rose to $3.7bn from $2.4bn.
Compass said the main growth came in the second half of 2020, with the total number of transactions last year rising to 144,784, a 66% increase on 2019.
However, the company incurred a loss of $270.2 million for the year. In 2019, the cash and cash equivalents balance fell by 20%.
Compass IPO
It is not yet known when Compass plans to go public, how many shares it will sell in the IPO, at what price or what the company's valuation is.
However, the latest funding round in 2019 by investment fund SoftBank valued Compass at about $6.4bn.