San Francisco-based real estate tech firm Opendoor, led by former Shopify executive Kaz Nejatian, plans to grow its team with more Canadian talent, despite no immediate plans to operate in the Canadian market.
“Toronto is the single greatest source of raw, high-talent people in the world across almost every discipline.”
Nejatian confirmed to BetaKit that Opendoor has room for up to 100 roles in Toronto and is hiring across operations, finance, and engineering to fill out an office floor it’s renting in the city. On Wednesday, the CEO posted a link to RSVP to an upcoming mixer event in Toronto for “AI builders” interested in joining the team, with details available upon request.
“If you live in Toronto, come help us tilt the world towards homeowners,” Nejatian said in an X post.
Nejatian said in a direct message to BetaKit that he wants Toronto to be a “major hub” for Opendoor. The company has rented out a floor at King Street and Spadina Avenue in central Toronto.
“We have a relatively high bar and you have to be one of us to join the mission. We have space in the office for about 100 people and I’m hopeful we can fill all those chairs,” Nejatian said.
BetaKit reached Nejatian via X, after contacting Opendoor’s press email and being directed to the CEO’s DMs. When Nejatian joined as CEO, he announced that Opendoor was parting ways with external public relations agencies and would only use X to speak directly to its investors.
RELATED: Coinbase Canada CEO Lucas Matheson to join former Shopify colleagues at Opendoor
Nejatian, Shopify’s former COO, left Canada’s largest tech company to become Opendoor’s CEO last September following a period of meme-stock-style trading of the real estate tech stock. The stock, which is listed under the symbol $OPEN on the Nasdaq, was trading at $5.10 USD on Wednesday, down nearly 16 percent on the year.
Opendoor is a tech-enabled platform for buying and selling residential property that operates across the US. Fahd Ananta, former Roach Capital lead and Shopify product manager who joined Opendoor shortly after Nejatian, noted on X today that there’s no timeline yet for Opendoor to be operational in Canada.
“Toronto is the single greatest source of raw, high talent people in the world across almost every discipline,” Ananta wrote on X. “Often people feel like they have to leave to do something special but a lot of the magic happens right here.”
In addition to Nejatian and Ananta, Opendoor is already home to a slew of talent from the Canadian tech sphere. Former Coinbase Canada CEO Lucas Matheson joined as president in December. Nejatian also tapped his former “second-in-command” at Shopify, Giang LeGrice, to lead operations.
Feature image courtesy Unsplash. Photo by Julian Gentile.