Home-building tech startup Atmos has raised $12.5 million in Series A funding to continue its mission of helping Charlotteans and residents in other North Carolina cities design custom homes.
The latest funding round was led by Menlo Park, California-based Khosla Ventures. JLL Spark, Y Combinator and Sam Altman of OpenAI also reaffirmed their prior investments, Atmos said. Keller Williams, Duke Angel Network, Stephen Pagliuca, chairman of Bain Capital, and Dylan Field, Figma CEO, invested in the startup as well.
Atmos, founded in 2018, is an online marketplace that makes a local selection of vetted Realtors, architects and contractors accessible in one place. That allows users to customize their home-building experience from conception to move-in.
The startup's goal is to provide affordable options to customers amid rising interest rates and a housing shortage. Atmos says homebuilders first select their land of choice, then design a home plan with amenities in their budget. Atmos will approve the design using its 3D tech.
It charges customers a 5% fee of the total build cost, not including land.
"Home building is not simple, so we saw it as a kind of hybrid model," said Dayn Sommer, who built his home through Atmos. "Since we did not want to pick every little thing, we avoided some upfront costs, but we’ll have chosen enough that makes it unique to us and will not end up with a house that looks just like everyone else’s on the block."
The startup said that while builders are facing a decline in sales, a ready-to-build and client-financed home provides a more attractive option to those in the industry.
Atmos' technology is designed to determine what can be built on any specific lot, based on size, shape and development requirements. The process, the startup said, can assist land developers and real estate agents by enabling them to go direct-to-consumer for land sales.
“In bringing together both sides of the market — homebuyers and builders — we’re making custom home building more accessible to people who might never have thought it was possible for them,” said Nicholas Donahue, CEO and co-founder of Atmos. “At a time when people want to make every dollar count, we want homebuyers to know designing a home unique to them is possible with the help of Atmos.”
Donahue previously told CBJ that Atmos selected Charlotte as one of its first launch cities due to it being a popular market for tech as well as people moving here at a rapid pace. The remote-based platform is accessible in Charlotte, Raleigh and Durham. Charlotte and Raleigh remain the startup's key areas to build, Donahue said.
Atmos previously raised a $2 million round in March 2020. It participated in Y Combinator's summer cohort that same year, and also closed on a $4 million funding round led by Khosla in October 2020. Atmos made Charlotte Inno's Startups to Watch list for 2021.
