Honest Buildings, an operations and construction management platform for landlords, raised $5 million in a new A-2 funding round led by Circle Ventures, the Milstein Cos.’ venture arm, The Real Deal has learned. As part of the deal, Milstein and Honest Buildings also formed a strategic partnership.
With the new round, the firm has raised a total of $17 million from its investors, making it one of the richest real estate tech startups. Its backers include brothers Jared Kushner, who sits on the company’s board, and Joshua Kushner, whose venture firm Thrive Capital invested in the startup.
“With trillions of dollars spent on construction and building improvements annually, we see an untapped opportunity to realize significant savings and efficiencies by harnessing the power of data and information to enable better decision making,” Howard Milstein, CEO of Milstein Cos. and Emigrant Bank, said in a statement.
Honest Buildings was founded by Riggs Kubiak in 2012, initially as a sort of “LinkedIn for real estate” to connect developers and landlords with engineers, architects and contractors. This April, the platform relaunched with a new focus. It is now primarily a tool for building owners and developers to manage and solicit bids from contractors and oversee management and construction costs across their portfolios – although the marketplace still exists. In essence, it allows landlords to manage costs throughout a portfolio in a way akin to how Hightower or VTS allow landlords to manage leasing.
The firm counts WeWork, Kushner Companies, Equinox, Benchmark Real Estate Group and Madison Realty Capital among its clients, and claims to have had its hands in $600 million worth of deals.
“Our new partnership with Circle Ventures and the Milstein family is a strategic alliance that will help to accelerate our growth with owners, developers and lenders,” Kubiak said.