Offerpad is set to go public via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company, following the same method by which Opendoor, a top iBuying rival went public late last year. Only Offerpad is set to do so via a merger with a SPAC started by Spencer Rascoff, the former CEO and co-founder of Zillow, another top iBuying rival.
Brian Bair | Photo credit: Offerpad
“I’ve been in real estate for decades and always knew there would be a better way to sell and buy homes. iBuying is coming into its moment, as consumers increasingly want to transact online,” Brian Bair, Offerpad’s CEO, said in a statement. “At Offerpad, we combine the technology that makes it possible, with local real estate experts that provide fantastic customer service to sellers and buyers — all of which allows us to turn over homes more efficiently than anyone else in the category.”
Since the company’s inception in 2015, Offerpad has closed roughly 30,000 transactions and nearly $7 billion in gross transaction value, the company said in a statement.
Supernova Partners Acquisition Company, Inc., is a special purpose acquisition company that is currently being publicly-traded and, post-merger, will become the publicly-traded version of Offerpad. It’s one of three SPACs launched by Rascoff, the former CEO of Zillow and founder of Pacaso, dot.LA and Hotwire.
Spencer Rascoff | Photo credit: Twitter
“IBuying has barely scratched the surface of real estate, one of the biggest addressable markets in the world,” Rascoff said, in a statement. “In general, real estate continues to be mostly analog, in contrast to other industries like grocery, autos and pharmaceuticals, but consumers demand online solutions.”
“As they bring more transactions online, we believe online real estate as a whole is poised to grow rapidly in the coming years and that Offerpad is incredibly well-positioned to grab a huge piece of this market.”
The post-transaction equity value of the company is expected to be $3 billion. The deal will also provide Offerpad an infusion of up to $650 million in gross cash proceeds.
Opendoor, which went public late last year via a merger with Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp. II, and the merger gave the company an equity value of $4.8 billion. Since becoming pubicly-traded, Opendoor’s market cap has climbed north of $15 billiion.
Employing a SPAC — essentially a shell company that acquires another company with the sole purpose of taking it public and has no other business — has become trendy for tech companies in the current economic climate. Rascoff has launched three different SPACs along with his partners.
The company’s common stock is expected to trade under the ticker symbol OPAD.
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