Compass, Inc.

Compass, Inc. operates a residential real estate brokerage in the United States. It has approximately 29,000 agents, who are generally independent contractors, on its platform.

In 2023, the company completed 178,848 transactions for a gross dollar value of $186.1 billion. It had a market share in the U.S. of 4.5%. SoftBank Vision Fund owns 30.1% of the company.

History
Compass was founded by Ori Allon, Robert Reffkin, and Avi Dorfman as Urban Compass, Inc. in New York City in October 2012. Allon was a Director of Engineering at Twitter, and previously founded companies acquired by Twitter and Google. Reffkin had previously served as the chief of staff to the president of Goldman Sachs and worked in the White House. Avi Dorfman had previously worked at McKinsey & Company and Lehman Brothers, and founded a startup.

The company raised $8 million of seed funding. The initial business model employed full-time, salaried brokers and was focused only on rentals. The service was launched in May 2013.

In January 2014, Compass announced it would change its overall business model by contracting independent real estate agents, receiving a portion of the broker commission.

In July 2014, Compass signed a lease on 25,000 square feet of office space at 90 5th Avenue, which became its global headquarters.

In June 2014, Leonard Steinberg, previously with Douglas Elliman, was named president of the company. At that time, the company had 125 agents and 70 staff members.

In July 2016, the company launched a mobile app.

The company expanded into several markets, both organically and via acquisitions. By January 2017, the company operated in 9 U.S. markets: New York, Boston, San Francisco, Miami, Washington, the Hamptons, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and Aspen. At that time, it had 1,300 agents.

On April 1, 2021, the company became a public company via an initial public offering.

In November 2021, Compass settled with Avi Dorfman, ending an 8-year dispute, and acknowledging him as a member of the founding team. The company took a $21.3 million charge in connection with the matter.

The company announced several rounds of layoffs in 2022 and 2023.

Awards
Compass was named Mid-Sized Business of the Year by the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce in 2015.

In 2018, Compass was named to Crain's Fast 50.

In January 2019, it was ranked 14th on Glassdoor's Best Places to Work.

In April 2019, Compass received a Webby Award for Best Real Estate Website.

In August 2019, it was named one of the Best Workplaces for Innovators by Fast Company.

Compass won the 2020 Webby Award in the real estate web category.