Compass was originally founded as Urban Compass in late 2012. The company raised $8mm of seed fundraising from Founder’s Fund, Thrive Capital, Goldman Sachs as well as several individual investors including American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault, and ZocDoc CEO Cyrus Massoumi. The initial business model employed full-time, salaried brokers, who users of the platform could schedule appointments online with after searching for listings on the company’s desktop or mobile app. The company publicly debuted at an event in May 2013, where then-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg helped celebrate the launch. The company initially focused only on rentals.

In September 2013, the company raised a Series A financing round of $20m, at a reported valuation of $150m. Investors including Advance Publications, the CEO of Salesforce.com, Marc Benioff, and .406 Ventures all invested in Compass at this stage.

At the beginning of 2014, Compass announced they would enter the real estate sales business and a change in their overall business model, contracting independent real estate agents and taking a cut of the commission. In July 2014, Compass raised a Series B financing round of $40m, this time at a valuation of $360m according to Bloomberg. Shortly following, Compass signed a lease on 25,000 square feet at 90 5th Avenue. The firm also hired Leonard Steinberg, a top-ranked real estate broker, from Douglas Elliman to serve as its president. Leonard Steinberg was named the agent with the highest sales volume in 2016 by Real Trends. The company reported having 125 agents and 70 staff at this time.

In September 2015, Compass raised a Series C financing round of $50m at a reported valuation of $800m. The investment was led by Institutional Venture Partners. The company also opened offices in Brooklyn, South Florida, Boston and The Hamptons.

In August 2016, Compass raised a Series D financing round of $75m, led by Wellington Management, which brought its valuation to north of $1B. The company also launched a new mobile app that offers real-time data on the real estate market. Earlier in the year, the company expanded into Aspen with the acquisition of Shane Aspen Real Estate as well as Los Angeles. Reports also cited Compass’ expansion into Santa Barbara and San Francisco as well as several other smaller sub-markets of their other major metro areas.

Throughout 2017, Compass hired several new executives to its leadership team, including Maelle Gavet, a former Priceline Group executive, as Chief Operating Officer; Madan Nagaldinne, a former Facebook and Amazon executive as Chief People Officer;, Chuck Canton as Head of Operational Finance, and Craig Anderson, a former Flywheel executive as Chief Financial Officer.

In November 2017, Compass announced $100M Series E Investment by Fidelity Investments, followed by Dec 7th, 2017 announcement of $450M investment by Softbank Vision Fund, later bringing the company valuation to $2.2B. Compass also expanded into Chicago in late November, signing the city’s number one real estate team. Additionally, Compass announced aggressive expansion plans to 9 more cities.

Less than a year later in September 2018, Compass announced a $400M Series F at a valuation to $4.4B. This series was led by Softbank Vision Fund and Qatar Investment Authority, other investors includ ed, Wellington Management, Institutional Venture Partners and Fidelity Investments. Compass also announced plans to use these funds to enter international markets and double down on creating world leading technology.