Redfin is a real estate website that conducts real estate transactions at a rate that is less than the industry rates.  The industry rates take about 5-6% of the sales price of homes and splits it between buyers and sellers.  Real estate broker fees on the sale of a million dollar house could be up to $60,000.

The company recently hit profitability as the run rate is about $15 million.  In 2007, Redfin made about $5 million and in 2006 the company made $1 million.  In 2006 real estate agents started learning about Redfin’s business model and threatened or stalked the employees of Redfin.

In 2007, Redfin redesigned the website and logo to avoid litigation threatened from Move.com.  The logo Redfin had before was a house within a circle.  The CEO of Redfin is Glenn Kelman and he was the co-founder of Plumtree Software beforehand.  Plumtree was backed by Sequoia and went public.

[via TechCrunch]