A Durham startup that's trying to disrupt the real estate sector with its “intelligent homebuilding platform" has raised $53 million and plans to hire.
Higharc plans to use the new capital to hire, particularly in customer service, says co-founder Marc Minor. The 70-person company, which describes itself as remote-first, has additional offices in San Francisco and Atlanta.
Minor and his co-founder, Michael Bergin, who is based in San Francisco, spoke to Triangle Business Journal about what’s next, and how the company, which is backed by The Home Depot (NYSE: HD), was able to reel in the funding haul amid a less-than-favorable macro environment.
Replacing outdated systems for building homes
The company’s technology aims to replace the pen and paper processes that dominate the industry. Its platform aims to allow homebuilders to get everything they need to design, estimate, sell and build homes, all in one place. And when a plan changes, every department gets automatic updates, from materials to construction documents.
Bergin said the new dollars allow the firm to expand its reach. He points to participants of the round themselves, such as Schneider Electric.
“The theme here is, we’re taking building materials, and we’re connecting them into the design system,” he said, noting a buyer will be able to fully see and visualize their unbuilt home, along with all the options and customizations that are needed.
Minor said that along with investing in further innovation (the team has added a generative AI focus group), the plan is to use the dollars to support the growth through staffing.
“Ninety percent of all houses are designed using the same piece of software,” Minor said. “What that means is Higharc will be used on every single house over time. … We want to put ourselves in a position to illustrate to our customers that we are committed to them for a very long period of time."
Minor said the plan is to be at about 90 employees by the end of the year.
Weathering a VC storm
The funding round was led by Spark Capital with participation from SE Ventures (Schneider Electric’s venture arm), Fifth Wall, Starwood Capital, Standard Investments, Home Depot, Ferguson, Simpson Strong-Tie, Mulhern+Kulp Engineering, Suffolk Technologies, RXR Realty, PSP Growth, Metaprop, SC Masterfund, former Autodesk CEO Carl Bass and others.
Minor attributes Higharc’s success to recent attention from the broader homebuilding ecosystem, boosted by past investments by firms in the industry such as Home Depot.
“We’ve always had a strategy of partnering as widely as we can with the ecosystem, and that especially means building materials and distributors,” he said. “So thankfully, Higharc represents a pretty differentiated business that has built fundamental technology for an often ignored industry, and that puts us in a good spot to whether the storm of VC being more broadly down.”
Last fall, the firm received “a critical mass of interest that we decided to pursue.” The round closed in about three months, he said.
