US realty firm Opendoor winds down India operations, nearly 250 employees impacted

San Francisco-based real estate technology firm Opendoor has started to shut down its India operations, laying off all 250 employees as it relocates operational roles closer to the US.

Opendoor started its operations in India in 2022 with offices in Chennai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru.

"Today we began to say goodbye to our colleagues in India as we wind down our India operations. Our customers are in America, and that's where our operational work belongs," Opendoor CEO Kaz Nejatian said in a post on X on Wednesday.

The internal note posted on social media said that since the launch of Opendoor 2.0 a few months ago, the company has unified systems and built small AI-native customer-facing teams across the US.

"This affects all of our colleagues in India who have done meaningful work for Opendoor. I am grateful for their dedication and this decision is not a reflection of the quality of their work," the note posted by Nejatian said.

Affected employees will receive severance pay, outplacement services, and transition support, while a small group will remain temporarily to complete the migration of key workstreams.

"For years, Opendoor built a large team in India to handle manual workflows across fragmented systems. As we've unified these systems and have hired small Al-native customer-facing teams throughout the US, we need all this operational work to be done in person and close to our customers," Nejatian said.

He said after the winding down of India operations, Opendoor 2.0 will be a much smaller company by headcount, but a much larger company by impact.

Founded in 2014, Opendoor had an "iBuying" model, using technology and data analytics to make instant cash offers to homeowners, buy homes directly, and then resell them.

The company also offers mortgage and home-selling services through its digital platform and operates across several US housing markets.