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Citi Habitats’ Golub joins well-funded tech start-up Urban Compass

Company, founded by entrepreneur Ori Allon, to have real estate focus

Ori Allon and Gordon Golub
Ori Allon and Gordon Golub

Gordon Golub, the former Citi Habitats executive vice president and director of rentals who recently left the firm after 18 years, has joined a new real estate-related tech start-up, The Real Deal has learned. Golub, whose departure from Citi Habitats shocked industry insiders, has been recruited to join Urban Compass, a company founded last year by tech world entrepreneur Ori Allon.

Allon is the serial founder behind companies such as Julpan, a tool for analyzing social information, which sold to Twitter in 2011. He also built an internet search algorithm called Orion, which sold to Google in 2006.

Golub has already begun working as a senior executive at the start-up, he confirmed to The Real Deal today. The company’s website is set to launch in beta this spring.

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While Allon declined to reveal details of what exactly Urban Compass will be, a large number of its investors and executives have come from the real estate world. Joshua Kushner’s Thrive Capital and Goldman Sachs have both contributed to the $8 million in total seed funding the company has received to date. Kenneth Chenault, CEO of American Express, and ZocDoc CEO Cyrus Massoumi have also invested in the Urban Compass.

Company co-founder Mike Weiss also has a real estate background; prior to joining the start up, he focused on real estate private equity at Goldman Sachs and worked at hospitality website Airbnb.

Allon said of the project: “We want to do something a bit different and impact an industry that a lot of people are unhappy with.”

As previously reported, Golub’s duties at Citi Habitats will be absorbed by Peter Sobeck, previously a senior vice president for Citi Habitats’ parent company NRT.