Standard Investments, Home Depot Ventures, and Carl Bass Back Higharc's Generative Design Solution to Help U.S. Homebuilders

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Jul 18, 2023, 08:00 ET

Investment Accelerates Adoption of Technology in Design and Construction, Bringing Digital Transformation to the Homebuilding Process

DURHAM, N.C. , July 18, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Higharc, the intelligent homebuilding platform for design, sales, and construction, today announced a strategic investment to accelerate the adoption of its generative design technology and help transform the homebuilding process. The investment was made by Standard Investments, the investment arm of global industrial company Standard Industries; Home Depot Ventures™, the venture capital fund managed by the world's largest home improvement retailer; and Carl Bass, former president and CEO of Autodesk, Inc., who joins Higharc as an advisor.

The investment coincides with a critical moment for the U.S. housing market. The Wall Street Journal reports that the country's housing needs outpace available stock by as many as 7.3 million units, driving up consumer prices and putting immense pressure on builders to meet demand.

Residential homebuilders face an uphill battle to scale, weighed down by shifting regulatory standards, legacy software systems, and redundant manual processes that result in lower efficiency and higher costs.

"More and more, there are constraints in home building with respect to supply chain and labor issues," said Ted Brock, president of Buffington Homes. "We are thrilled to work with Higharc because of the incredible flexibility their platform provides to us in building homes and easily handling changes with our teams in the field. This removes a ton of frustration and confusion for everyone involved, creates less errors on the job site, and provides a better homebuyer experience."

Builders perform hundreds of manual processes and paper-based tasks to design and build homes. Higharc's intelligent data model simplifies home design data and construction documents using automation, creating a more efficient and cost-effective approach to building homes at scale.

"Revit and BIM transformed the architecture industry, and I see Higharc's generative design platform having a similar transformative effect on homes," said Carl Bass. "I am thrilled to join the journey with Higharc, a pioneer in its field, as they lead the charge in reshaping the construction landscape and redefining how homes and communities come to life."

Higharc's platform automatically produces everything needed to design, sell, and build homes at a fraction of the cost compared to traditional software. This also enables buyers to configure their new home using online 3D models and also dramatically speeds up the builder's ability to get these homes to market.

"Higharc isn't just a tool we're adding to our business. It can change the way we do business by solving a lot of the traditional problems in homebuilding. As a result we'll be more efficient as an organization," said Rob Krohn, VP of Marketing at Epcon Communities.

"Standard believes in the power of digital technology to transform the physical world and that is exactly what Higharc is doing for homebuilding," said Ben Sampson, Managing Director of Standard Investments. "We are proud to support the Higharc team as they continue to bring their platform to homebuilders across the country."

This investment boosts Higharc's total capital raised to over $40 million, positioning the company to further its mission to improve the quality and affordability of homes and communities everywhere.

"We are thrilled to have Home Depot Ventures, Standard Investments, and Carl Bass join Higharc to bring innovation to the homebuilding industry," said Marc Minor, CEO of Higharc. "Transformational change in critical industries like homebuilding depends on robust partnerships. The decision of these industry leaders to support Higharc as we expand our platform speaks to the caliber of our team and the impact Higharc has made for builders across the country."

To learn more about Higharc, please visit: higharc.com

About Higharc
Founded in 2018, Higharc is the first Intelligent Homebuilding platform changing how new homes are designed, sold and built, working with many of the Top 100 builders across the U.S. to build new homes and communities. Higharc has raised over $40 million in capital since inception and is backed by Spark Capital, Lux Capital, Home Depot Ventures™, GAF, Adobe CPO Scott Belsky, former Autodesk CEO Carl Bass, Javelin Venture Partners, Pillar VC, Simpson Strong-Tie, Ferguson and Starwood Capital, plus founders of PlanGrid, Built Technologies, Desktop Metal, Carbon3D, and Digits. Other investors include MetaProp, Tectonic Capital, Montage Ventures, and Vertex Ventures. For more information, visit higharc.com.

About Standard Investments
Standard Investments is a fundamentally driven investment platform focused on the intersection of industry and technology. Standard Investments deploys capital flexibly and creatively across the public and private markets, spanning the life cycle of a company, and leverages its deep industrial knowledge and operational experience to create value. To learn more, visit standardinvestments.com.

About Carl Bass
Carl Bass is a former President and Chief Executive Officer of Autodesk, Inc. He is co-founder of Flying Moose, Ithaca Software and buzzsaw. Presently, Mr. Bass is Chairman for Velo3D, Inc., Chairman of Ouster, Inc. and Executive Chairman at Zoox, Inc. In the past Carl Bass occupied the position of Director at Autodesk, Inc. and President & Chief Executive Officer of Buzzsaw.com, Inc. (a subsidiary of Autodesk, Inc.) and Advisor at Impact Venture, Inc. He serves on the Board of Trustees of the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Art Center College of Design and California College of the Arts. He serves on the Advisory Boards of Cornell Computing and Information Science, UC Berkeley School of Information and UC Berkeley College of Engineering. Mr. Bass holds a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics from Cornell University.

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SOURCE Higharc