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Construction technology company Higharc closed a $53 million Series B round of financing, according to a Feb. 15 press release sent to Inman.
The latest investment was led by Spark Capital and Pillar VC, but a significant number of backers took part, including Fifth Wall, Home Depot, Starwood Capital, Metaprop and CBRE, among others. Welcome Homes, a construction technology company that was itself the recipient of venture funding last year, was part of the Higharc backing as well. In total, 18 entities invested.
The company raised $15 million in July 2023 with Home Depot Ventures also participating.
“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, in a statement. “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.”
Higharc offers dynamic drafting and modeling solutions, planned community efficiencies, communication features, budgeting systems, procurement and estimation tools, as well as sales support and consumer-facing marketing efforts.
Individual software modules are designed to be integrated to marry the endless minutiae that accompany building even the most standard freestanding home. Higharc’s capabilities also enable buyers to configure their new homes using online 3D models and dramatically speed up the builder’s ability to get these homes to market. Changes can be implemented faster, materials ordered more efficiently and workers on the ground become better informed.
The new money will be put toward the general advancement of the product, namely in the integration of artificial intelligence-based workflow catalysts and automated materials estimating.
Case studies of Higharc’s benefits have shown “homebuilders being able to bring new communities to market up to three times faster, cutting 90 days from the design cycle, a 75 percent reduction,” the release stated.
House construction has long, and apparently unknowingly, suffered from almost incalculable stakeholder fragmentation, a clear contributor to the still exhausting amount of time it takes to build a free-standing home. When scaled to address the construction of entire planned communities, the risk of staggering delays is all but guaranteed, even when a builder offers a limited number of designs and few bespoke options. The “cookie-cutter” nature of America’s housing stock is a direct result of an attempt to streamline the process.
Higharc’s backers are likely aware of favorable trends for new builds, with the pace of new-home sales picking up last year even as existing-home sales posted double-digit declines in the face of inventory shortages.
Projections that new home sales will accelerate further in 2024 got some initial validation Friday, with the Mortgage Bankers Association reporting that mortgage applications for new-home purchases were up 19.1 percent from a year ago in January.
Higharc was founded in 2018 and is located in Durham, North Carolina.
