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A number of venture capital firms have coalesced around the idea of expediting the construction permitting process for real estate developers, with Craft Ventures leading a Series A round of $28.5 million for GreenLite, entering the market with a “purpose-built technology and Private Plan Review service to standardize and automate the entire permitting process,” according to a Sept. 17 press release.
Other firms backing GreenLite include 53 Stations, Trust Ventures and LiveOak Ventures.
The company’s solution is scalable across the property construction horizon, able to power users through the myriad of regulations, documentation demands, approval processes and intricate workflows of residential, office, multi-family, retail and even solar project developers, according to the release.
Calling itself the only “software-first private provider in the market,” GreenLite connects builders with municipalities to offer “modern tools that facilitate faster, more organized, and more predictable construction permitting.”
James Gallagher, GreenLite’s co-founder and CEO, said in the release that cities and towns nationwide are bogged down by hundreds of thousands of various forms and application requirements, despite applicable building codes being largely the same.
“As a Private Provider, we consolidate these administrative differences and give developers the opportunity to work with one privatized regulatory agency. Our approach accelerates development timelines, saves customers millions, and better serves the needs of city and county governments when compared to other construction permitting workflow software out there.”
The software consolidates developer assets, zoning and use data, building code and compliance insights into a single source, automating the mitigation of non-compliance concerns, enabling faster application of local workflow standards and identifying administrative constrictions months before manual processes
Residential agents may be familiar with RESO, or Real Estate Standards Organization, which has been working for years to create a uniform data standard for how residential property data is sorted and used, for much the same reason GreenLite earned its funding — an industry functions better when its stakeholders speak the same language.
“The most passionate and driven founders have lived through the pain of the problem they’re solving for – this is the case with GreenLite founders James and Ben. They care deeply about our country’s ability to build quickly and safely, whether it be infrastructure, commercial projects, or housing developments,” said Bryan Rosenblatt, partner at round leader Craft Ventures, in the press release.
“GreenLite is an ally and partner to both the commercial sector and regulatory authorities. We support their mission to modernize the collaboration between developers, builders, and governments, with the ultimate goal of accelerating America’s ability to build.”
GreenLite goes beyond the automation of paper-based processes, allowing for collaboration and insights to be shared among widely disparate parties on each end of the project, groups whose interaction is critical but traditionally hidden in layers of email, voicemails and physical mail.
The company states its software can reduce the time and labor required for plan review by 75 percent per project. It currently serves a number of production home builders, developers and quick-service restaurant brands, among other customers.
