“As Compass tries to make the financial case for its technology-juiced business model — with the eventual goal of taking the company public — it needs to prove it’s more than just flashy packaging.”

Illustration: Maria Chimishkyan

Last month, Patrick Sisson wrote in Marker that Compass is building a residential brokerage with the valuation of a tech giant. For months, the splashy real estate startup backed by SoftBank sparked much speculation about when the company would go public amid a pandemic-induced booming luxury real estate market. The wait is now over: The company filed confidentially to go public on Monday and submitted a draft registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The size of the offering has not yet been reported, but Compass was last valued at $6.4 billion in July 2019 when it raised its Series G—a whopping 10 times that of Realogy, the giant conglomerate of brokerages including Sotheby’s and Coldwell Banker.

How Compass Became the Bane of Real Estate