Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Zillow

The Debt Crisis Puts Future Tech IPOs In A Turbulent Market

Amit Chowdhry — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 22:28:05 +0000

Some of the technology companies that have filed to have an IPO this year includes Zillow.com, Zynga, Groupon, and LivingSocial. Given Pandora and LinkedIn’s success on their recent IPO, it provided positivity and excitement for the aforementioned companies to go public. However today’s economy gives the stock market an entirely different perspective.

The United States has a weak economy and is facing a debt crisis. The United States had lost its top credit rating for the first time in history due to the debt crisis. This directly affects what happens on Wall Street. Amazon.com’s market valuation dropped below $100 billion and Apple’s stock price dropped below $400 again on July 26th. LinkedIn’s stock was recently downgraded as well.

Even though Wall Street is in a volatile state, the market is showing signs of strength. According to Renaissance Capital, the number of offerings is up 15% to 93. The proceeds have more than doubled to $28.5 billion. These offerings have grown due to many technology companies. Due to the strength of the recent technology IPOs, I believe that current economic conditions will not deter companies like Groupon, Zynga, Zillow, and LivingSocial to postpone. All of these companies have been successful in their respective market shares.

[TechFlash]

Zillow Stock Price Increases 79% In First Day

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 04:30:07 +0000

Real estate search engine Zillow.com went public on the stock market yesterday and their stock price increased 79% in the first day. Zillow trades on the Nasdaq stock market under the symbol “Z.” The stock price climbed 79% to $35.77 as of 4PM EST yesterday. Zillow raised $69.2 million after selling 3.46 million shares at $20 per share. Zillow lets home buyers and sellers list and search for properties. For the quarter ended March 31st, Zillow’s revenue grew more than double to $11.3 million. Based on the IPO price, Zillow’s market cap was roughly $540 million. [SF Gate]

Zillow Now Has A $500 Million Valuation

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 03:51:48 +0000

Real estate website Zillow.com has increased the price of their IPO to $16-$18 per share from $12-$14. Now Zillow has a valuation of close to $500 million. Zillow will trade under the stock symbol “Z” on the NASDAQ. Zillow is aiming to raise about $71.6 million in the IPO. Zillow currently has about 100 million U.S. homes listed for rent and for sale. Zillow is the third most visited real estate website in the U.S.

Zillow Reports $11.2 Million Revenue, $826K Loss For Q1 and Chooses “Z” For Ticker Symbol

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 23 May 2011 22:43:26 +0000

Real estate search engine company Zillow.com is planning to go public later this year and has filed an updated SEC filing to include their ticket selection. Zillow.com is planning to trade under the symbol “Z” on the Nasdaq stock exchange. The same filing contained financial information about the company.

Zillow.com is reporting a net loss of $826,000 during the quarter. This is down from $2.8 million during the same period last year. The company’s revenues doubled to $11.2 million. Zillow.com had finished the quarter with $15.5 million in cash and 271 employees. Zillow was founded by former Expedia execs Rich Barton and Lloyd Frink. The company plans to raise $51 million through an IPO in April.

[GeekWire]

Zillow Files For $51.75 Million IPO

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 07:09:07 +0000

Real estate search engine company Zillow.com has filed an S-1, which means that the company is going public on the stock market. Zillow is aiming to raise $51.75 million. Currently this is a placeholder amount and is subject to change.

Citigroup, Allen & Company, ThinkEquity, Needham & Company, and First Washington Corporation are underwriters in the IPO. Zillow received about 19 million unique visitors in March and they are currently listing about 100 million U.S. homes. Zillow hit $10.6 million in revenues in 2008, $17.5 million in 2009, and $30.5 million in 2010. However income has been at a loss over the last 3 years.

In March 2011 Zillow was used over 8 million times on a mobile device. Over 1.4 million homes are viewed on mobile devices per day. Zillow is expecting the revenue growth rate to decline due to the maturation of their business. The costs are also expected to rise as they continue to invest in product development, marketing, and partnerships. Zillow raised about $87 million in funding from Benchmark Capital, Technology Crossover Ventures, PAR Capital Management, and Legg Mason.

[TechCrunch]

Zillow Acquires Online Real Estate Listing Website Postlets

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 06:28:10 +0000

Real estate search engine website Zillow has acquired Postlets. Postlets is an online real estate listing creation and distribution service commonly used by agents, property managers, and landlords. Postlets can automatically distribute listings across 13 real estate and social media services. When creating an account on Postlets, you are able to create a personalized landing page. You can customize a personal gallery, a company logo, and an about me page.

Postlets was founded in 2005 by Asher Matsuda and Raymond Chen. There are over 500,000 registered users that use Postlets. Not much will change after the acquisition. Postlets will continue to send out listings to its distribution partners.

[Zillow Blog]

Zillow Hires Citigroup To Manage IPO

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 23:25:39 +0000

Online real estate company Zillow has hired Citigroup to manage a future IPO. The timing of the IPO is not yet known. Zillow is a company where renters and home buyers/sellers can list and search for properties and discover their value. Zillow earns revenue from selling ad space on their website and mobile app. [BusinessWeek]

Zillow Providing Rent Zestimates For 90 Million Properties

Amit Chowdhry — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 16:04:41 +0000

Real estate search engine Zillow.com is best known for estimating the value of houses and condos across the U.S. Now Zillow has launched a new service called Rent Zestimates, which will have rent prices for about 90 million homes. Zillow is used as a marketplace for renters, sellers, and buyers.

About 70% of people that move each year are renters and two-third of these renters do not know what fair rental prices are before signing the lease.
Having access to rent data will help people predict how to budget their housing. Landlords will benefit from the service by using Rent Zestimates as a starting point for determining how much to charge for rent.

Rent Zestimates will appear in hovering speech bubbles over properties available for rent on the Zillow map.

[Zillow Blog]

Yahoo! Real Estate Partners With Zillow

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 22:51:05 +0000

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) has partnered with Zillow.com to become the largest real estate network on the web. Now Zillow sells local ads for both web sites. Zillow’s listings now also appear on Yahoo! Real Estate. Zillow reaches about 16 million monthly unique visitors. Real estate agents or brokers that are interested in advertising on Yahoo!/Zillow Real Estate Network can contact the Zillow’s sales team at: 866-324-4005.

Yahoo! Outsources Real Estate Section To Zillow

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 14:42:18 +0000

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAY:YHOO) has outsourced their Real Estate section to Zillow.com. Zillow will also work out an advertising deal with Yahoo! This deal is similar to the ones made when Match.com was integrated into Yahoo! Personals and Pricegrabber was integrated into Yahoo! Shopping.

Zillow advertisers will be able to buy Premier Agent placement on Yahoo! Zillow for-sale listings will automatically be added to Yahoo! Zillow, a Seattle based start-up is best known for adding Zestimates to every house. The company raised about $87 million in funding from Crossover Ventures and Benchmark Capital Technology. [VentureBeat]