A Durham startup pushing out what it calls an “all-in-one homebuilding platform” has disclosed a $1.3 million strategic investment.
The company, Higharc, announced Thursday that structural solutions firm Simpson Strong-Tie has signed on as an investor, bringing Higharc's total outside capital haul to $26.8 million.
CEO Marc Minor said the firm’s fundraising success comes from its “truly differentiated product.”
Higharc built a web-based system that upgrades what’s currently on the market, he said. Instead of decades-old construction management software currently dominating the market, Higharc's system can respond to change “really, really fast,” Minor said.
“The ability to change and to understand the costs of change and to manage those costs is a particularly acute need right now in homebuilding,” he said.
Minor knows this firsthand.
The idea for Higharc came after he moved to North Carolina from Massachusetts and decided to build a house. Minor, a veteran at 3D printing firms such as Desktop Metal and Carbon3D, was “pretty surprised at how archaic the technology stack was for building homes. Buyers can’t fully picture what they’re going to get, and “builders can’t control their costs because they can’t see all the pieces and how they relate,” he said.
Minor thought there had to be a better way, and founded Higharc in 2018. Investors soon bought in.
Minor said the firm raised a $21 million Series A finance round led by Spark Capital. That round, which the company announced in 2021, also attracted investors that included MetaProp, Montage Ventures, Tectonic Capital, PlanGrid Co-founder Ralph Gootee, Built Technologies Founder Chase Gilbert and Carta CTO Jerry Talton, along with existing investors such as Pillar Ventures, Javelin Venture Partners, Lux Capital and Vertex Ventures.
The latest raise is more strategic.
“What we’re doing is, we’re essentially looking at ways to take advantage of the data we provide,” Minor said. “We have a bunch of strategy partners we’re working with who represent building manufacturers.”
Minor is located in Durham where the company is headquartered, but the 60-person team is distributed across the country, he said.