Opcity Plans to Double in Size Adding 600 More Employees

Opcity plans to double in size hiring 600 more employees in the next couple of years, said Ben Rubenstein, the company’s CEO and Co-Founder.

Already, Opcity has 660 employees. It grew from zero to 660 in less than four years, he said. Opcity plans to hire 500 new employees next year, he said.

Opcity is also phasing out its brand in favor of Realtor.com, which is more recognized by consumers and potential employees, Rubenstein said. It’s not going to happen overnight, but Opcity is doing more and more under the Realtor.com brand name, he said. In 2018, Move, Inc., which operates Realtor.com, and is a subsidiary of News Corp., acquired  Opcity for $210 million. About 73 million unique visitors come to the Realtor.com website every month, Rubenstein said.

Realtor.com officially opened its new tech hub on Austin’s eastside on Tuesday.

And Opcity is already on the hunt for larger headquarters for its growing staff, Rubenstein said in an interview following the company’s official ribbon cutting.

The new office at 901 E. 6^th Street will house engineering and product development staff for Realtor.com. The company makes a technology platform that matches home buyers and home sellers with the best real estate agents in their neighborhoods with no upfront costs. The company uses proprietary data and applied analytics to increase sales.

The new office can hold up to 200 employees and already has 100 employees. The office features a couple of murals done by local artists depicting Austin scenes like the bats emerging from the Congress bridge and another one with statues of Willie Nelson and Stevie Ray Vaughan. It also has lots of open spaces featuring natural light, high ceilings, open workspaces, kitchenettes, meeting and huddle rooms, bike racks, and more features like Ping Pong tables that appeal to tech workers.

“I love this space,” said Mayor Steve Adler. “I also like it when Austin, which is a cool city, gets a little bit cooler.”

Austin is a city where it’s ok to try new ideas, Adler said. Opcity is a great example of that, he said.

“The people that try something and work at it and stay with it and then it grows, and it succeeds, those are the real civic folk heroes in our city,” Adler said. “That’s why there are more startups per capita in Austin than anywhere else.”

Austin is rated so high for new businesses and tech startups, Adler said.

“There’s just something cultural about being creative and innovative in this city,” he said.

Opcity has been one of the fastest-growing startup success stories to come from Austin in recent years. Rubenstein and co-founder Michael Lam first worked on the real estate startup at Galvanize in downtown Austin. But they outgrew that office and moved nearby to offices in the Silicon Labs building. And then in 2017, they moved to 50,000 square feet of space at the Bergstrom Tech Center in Southeast Austin on Burleson Road.

Opcity is working with a commercial broker looking for its next headquarters, Rubenstein said.

“We’re hiring,” Rubenstein said.