Durham, NC — February 15, 2024 — Higharc, the connected cloud platform for homebuilding operations, announced today a $53 million Series B funding round powered by over 18 industry leaders from construction, building products manufacturing, and distribution.
The new financing follows the company’s rapid growth and customer demand in 2023, as it has emerged as the next-generation cloud software leader in the $350 billion US homebuilding industry.
Spark Capital and Pillar VC led the round, 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, Carl Bass — the former Autodesk CEO — along with leaders from Mighty Buildings, Welcome Homes, CBRE, and Ware Malcomb. ‘
The investment will be used to support Higharc’s growth and expand its automated materials estimating and generative AI-based workflows.
“Higharc exists to serve the hardworking teams who build homes across America–they’ve been stuck using 40-year-old software that wasn’t designed with their needs in mind, and they deserve better,” said Marc Minor, CEO of Higharc. “This additional capital reinforces Higharc’s long-term commitment to the success of our customers and to unlocking digital transformation for the entire homebuilding industry.”
Homebuilders Are Bringing New Communities to Market 3X Faster With Higharc
The adoption of Higharc’s generative design technology helped builders bring new homes and communities to market faster than ever in 2023, eliminating 90 days from the design cycle for new communities — a 75% reduction — while decreasing soft cycle time by 33%.
“Higharc is truly the ‘best in class’ way to draft new home designs and to guide potential buyers through the overwhelming personalization process prior to sale. We’re now more responsive than ever,” said Paul Hanson, President of Franchising at Epcon Communities and current Higharc customer.
Over one million homes are built annually in the U.S., yet we still have a housing shortage of five million homes. Builders often struggle to improve operational efficiency because they are stuck with old, siloed software solutions and inadequate data. The results are time-intensive manual processes, a “whack-a-mole” approach to changes, constant rework, and poor customer experiences.
Higharc’s Homebuilding Cloud replaces the “pen and paper” processes and software solutions that dominate the industry. Homebuilders get everything they need to design, estimate, sell and build homes in one place. This means departments can stay connected and in sync with accurate data while moving much faster. Whenever a plan changes, every department gets updated automatically with new 3D sales experiences, materials takeoffs, and construction documents — drastically reducing cycle time and costly rework.
“Higharc is modernizing a large, foundational industry that’s traditionally been tough to change with technology. By bringing together builders, manufacturers, and buyers, Higharc’s transformative technology is rewriting the rules of the design-to-construction process. This technology is fundamentally improving how we build homes in this country for generations to come,” said Alex Finkelstein, Co-founder and General Partner at Spark Capital.
Industry Insiders Invest to Accelerate Innovation in Homebuilding
The investment brings Higharc’s total capital raised since 2018 to $78.7 million, positioning the company to continue delivering on their mission to help build better and more affordable homes through technology.
Previous investors Javelin Venture Partners, Lux Capital, and Vertex Ventures also joined the round. Over 18 industry leaders came together to support Higharc’s growth and innovation in the industry.
"Higharc's technology is second-to-none in the homebuilding space, offering a system that expedites the design-to-construction process and adds value to all stakeholders. In collaboration with Schneider Electric, SE Ventures is excited to help bring market insight and drive commercial deployment with homebuilders globally," said Brad Jones, Principal at SE Ventures.
“I’ve rarely seen such a talented team come together around such a powerful shared vision,” said Russ Wilcox, Partner at Pillar VC. ”They cracked the code on how software can help builders move from concept to construction with a smart and precise tool, which means owners get exactly what they want, and the job is both faster and cheaper. Everybody wins."
About Higharc
Founded in 2018, Higharc is the pioneer of The Homebuilding Cloud — the only connected platform that helps homebuilders transform how they design, sell, and build new homes and communities. Higharc customers today build over 40,000 homes annually representing $19 billion in new home sales volume. Headquartered in Durham, North Carolina, Higharc operates a remote-first workplace with over 70 full-time employees.
About Pillar VC
Pillar VC is an early-stage venture firm co-founded by 22 CEOs who have built Boston’s most successful companies, including the leaders of Wayfair, Ginkgo Bioworks, DraftKings, and Tripadvisor. Pillar is typically the first capital in for founders building next-generation pillar companies; the firm’s investments include PillPack, Desktop Metal, Jellyfish, JobGet, and Asimov, among other companies. To learn more, visit www.pillar.vc.
About Spark Capital
We are Spark Capital, investors in products we love by creators we admire, including Affirm, Anthropic, Cruise, Discord, Oculus, Plaid, Postmates, Slack, Twitter, and Wayfair. We know there are no playbooks or formulas for success and are here to help founders win their own way. We invest across all sectors and stages, and work out of San Francisco, Boston, and New York City.
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