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Seid, President of the online real estate portal plans to invest some of the capital injection to expand the site’s mobile presence.
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For the second time in as many weeks Google recently launched growth capital division aptly entitled Google Capital has made another major investment, this time in online real estate marketing portal, Auction.com. Google Capital’s investment has now placed a value on the company in the region $1.2 billion.
Announcing the investment Jake Seid stated that the $50 million invested by Google Capital in Auction.com will go a long way in helping the company to establish a mobile real estate presence, with the real estate industry increasingly moving towards to communication via tablets and Smartphones. Auction.com recently launched an iPad app recently and are going to continue to invest in the mobile sphere.
Pointing out that Auction.com has been permanently in the black since its founding, Jake Seid went on to add that the investment from Google Capital is its infusion of venture capital, although the company had been a previous recipient of private equity funding from Connecticut based, Stone Point Capital.
“This investment is really about forming a partnership with Google, who are world leaders in search engine management , as well as in mobile and online advertising, making for a valuable relationship for Auction.com .” Summed up Seid.
Since it was launched in 2007 Auction.com has earned themselves a reputation as an online marketplace for those involved in real estate, either buyers or sellers.m running up sales worth $7 billion in real estate online last year, through using an upmarket version of the “countdown clock” method that was pioneered on EBay. Overall has auctioned $26 billion of assets since 2007, diversifying from foreclosed homes sold on courthouse steps to selling luxury properties, office buildings and European real estate.. In recent years the company has diversified from this starting market in the ever-growing numbers of foreclosed properties that emerged after the sub-prime mortgage collapse of 2008, since diversified their activities into luxury properties as well as other sectors of the real estate market.
According to industry reports, Google Capital has been given an initial fund of $300 million to invest, equivalent to the same amount that was handed to Google Ventures, their other investment offshoot by Sergei Brin and Larry Page.
Last week, Google Capital announced that they would be making a $40 million investment in Renaissance Learning, an online learning company. Since their foundation Google Capital have placed funds in SurveyMonkey, a web survey development concern and Lending Club, a US peer-to-peer lending company, which, ironically, was originally an offshoot of Facebook and are headquartered in San Francisco, California.
Commenting on the investment, David Lawee, a partner in Google Capital stated that Auction.com has quietly built one of the largest marketplaces on the Web, “We are of opinion that Auction.com can fundamentally change how real estate, and particularly commercial real estate, can be bought and sold, leveling the playing field for smaller investors.” Summarized Lawee, who will be joining the board of Auction.com alongside its founders Rob Friedman and Jeffrey Frieden.
Jake Seid graduated with an M.Eng. Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) later going on to gain a Batchelor of Science degree, also in Electrical Engineering.
Jake began his business career in business development at Boston Technology (Comverse) moving on to become a Product Line Manager at Cisco Systems later joining Cisco’s cable business division, in a period when the unit’s annual turnover grew from a $1 million to $1 billion. Seid is recognized as being responsible for the successful launch and subsequent management of the industry’s first DOCSIS-based cable modems and routers which was awarded prizes for the “Best of Show“ and “Best Networking Hardware“ at Comdex’99.
Jake Seid left Oracle to join Lightspeed Venture Partners I, L.P., where he worked in a number of the company’s divisions, handling investments in mobile, Internet, systems, software, and components before joining Auction.com , as president in April 2013.
