Doubling down on my Homelight investment and leading the company’s Series C was an easy decision: Here’s why

By: Oren Zeev
As an investor, my goal is to find and cultivate companies that simplify and solve complicated, costly problems.
For most people, buying or selling a home represents one of the biggest financial transactions of their entire lives: it’s stressful, time-consuming, and the outcome is rarely certain. HomeLight set out to solve this complicated and costly problem. For those of you who don’t know HomeLight, they’re a real estate technology company that is changing how buyers and sellers experience real estate transactions.
The problem
Real estate is a massive industry — every year around 5M homes are sold, representing nearly $2 trillion in sales volume. It was clear to me early on, that most aspects of the real estate transaction were broken.
Home buyers and sellers are continually hindered by lengthy real estate contracts, financing & appraisal issues, home inspection problems, and issues with the title and deed. In short, it’s a terrible experience for the average consumer.
The solution
When I first met Drew years ago, I knew his passion for fixing real estate was undeniable. He had experienced many of these same issues in his home purchase and was determined to use technology to help consumers make better decisions. Today, that passion burns brighter than ever — and I believe HomeLight is better positioned than any other proptech company to reinvent how real estate is transacted. I have witnessed firsthand the rollout of many innovative products to help both agents and consumers including:
- Agent Referrals — HomeLight’s core product provides agents with the best quality real estate referrals in the industry
- Simple Sale — the first nationwide investor marketplace that enables consumers and agents to access hundreds of iBuyers in just minutes
- HomeLight Home Loans — an innovative mortgage product that allows home buyers to be underwritten in less than 24 hours and compete effectively with all cash buyers
- HomeLight Closing Services — a best in class title & escrow offering that is seeing exponential usage among the agent community
All of these innovative products are being distributed by an amazing network of the top agents across the country and enabling what I believe will be a full stack reinvention of real estate.
The future
When I first led HomeLight’s Series A in 2015, I could see that HomeLight had big plans for improving the real estate experience, and today I’m seeing the delivery of that promise. Since then, HomeLight has helped transact over $17B in real estate and become a household name for those who are in the market to buy or sell a home. The future of real estate will be marked by frictionless transactions, those that are simple, certain, and satisfying — and I’m more confident than ever that that future will be defined by HomeLight.
