The platform also buys homes from owners, renovates them and lists the properties for sale.
Offerpad Inc said on Thursday it would go public through a merger with a blank-check company in a deal that values the U.S. home-selling platform at $3 billion.
The deal with Zillow co-founder Spencer Rascoff-backed Supernova Partners AcquisitionCompany Inc will fetch $650 million in proceeds for Offerpad.
This includes a private investment of $200 million from affiliates of Supernova, funds managed by BlackRock Inc, homebuilder Taylor Morrison Home Corp and others, as investors bet on the digitalization of the $1.6 trillion residential real estate market.
Supernova stock was down nearly 2% on Thursday.
Offerpad, which expects revenue of $1.4 billion in 2021, said the company will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker “OPAD,” after the deal closes.
Arizona-based Offerpad provides an online platform for selling and buying homes. Sellers can upload photos and videos for a virtual tour, a feature that has been gaining popularity during the global pandemic.
The platform also buys homes from owners, renovates them and lists the properties for sale.
The company plans to use the capital raised to expand beyond its current presence in over 900 cities across the United States and to flip homes in a higher price range. The top end of its price range is now typically $400,000 and will go to $1 million, Brian Bair, founder and chief executive at Offerpad.
Blank-check firms, or special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), raise capital through an initial public offering to buy a private firm. Money raised through SPAC IPOs so far this year has already overtaken the $83.4 billion they raised in all of 2020, according to SPAC Research.
Opendoor Technologies Inc., another home selling platform, also went public through a SPAC deal at a valuation of at $4.8 billion.
Source: Reuters
(The story has been published from a wire feed without modifications to the text. Only the heading has been changed)
