As we’re heading into winter, I’m reminded once again that it’s a great privilege to be based in Boston and experience the glory of fall in New England. The colorful and visceral turning of the seasons can be seen and felt all around us, and it’s a constant reminder of the beauty and importance of change. One of the most rewarding aspects of being early stage investors is witnessing the essential changes our portfolio companies go through as they evolve, mature, and scale. One of those critical developmental milestones occurs when a company has firmly established its scaling framework and raises its first large growth round to dramatically increase its impact. As Mosaic’s CEO and co-founder Salman Ahmad said to us when we first met over two years ago, and repeated again at our recent LP meeting, “We are just at the beginning of homebuilding’s digital transformation.” He was right then, and he’s right now. As you will read below, Mosaic’s $44 million Series B is a watershed moment in leveraging innovation to address our urgent need for rapidly building more affordable housing. And while large funding rounds are the kinds of news that typically dominates the “startup press,” we are witnessing our portfolio companies having an impact across all phases of the built environment, and we are happy to have the opportunity to share some of their highlights below. I often think of Phil Bernstein’s keynote at our 2019 LP meeting when he challenged and encouraged all in attendance to focus more on the outcomes we were looking to deliver. Working closely with these teams, we get to witness first hand the outcomes they working towards to radically improve every facet of the built environment’s lifecycle. Our teams are delivering greater predictability, safety, sustainability, security—as well as lower carbon, less waste, increased productivity, and overall significantly better outcomes. As fall reminds us, change is inevitable, and it looks like the changes ahead for the built environment will be pretty great.
Wishing you all the happiest of holiday seasons and looking forward to crossing paths in 2022! – Travis & the BV team
Investment Updates
Our Continued Investment in Mosaic
With the current record housing shortages leading to an unprecedented residential market, there is more need than ever to be building more homes and to be building them more efficiently. Mosaic is on a mission to make this happen by leveraging technology. Mosaic’s software underpins project execution in a way that streamlines process flows, boosts repeatability, and enables tailored designs—in other words, letting general contractors manage construction more efficiently so that they can build more homes.
Mosaic’s software’s value will prove vital for reimagining the homebuilding experience, and this round of funding will be critical to helping them do so. We’re proud to partner with Salman and the team, investing alongside an incredible syndicate in the $44 million Series B led by Andreesen Horowitz. Read more about our continued investment in Mosaic here.
Portfolio News & Activity
🏆enVerid Wins CSE Mag’s HVAC Product of the Year 🏆
Consulting Specifying Engineer magazine readers voted enVerid’s HLR 100M the top HVAC product of the year. Read more about the award and enVerid’s sorbent ventilation technology here.
In The Press
Aeroseal joins the second cohort of climate-tech incubator The Clean Fight New York. ♻️
🖥 Join Digital has partnered with Obayashi to bring its technology platform to new projects throughout North America and Japan. Read more details about this exciting partnership here.
The Eco Channel interviewed Envoy’s Aric Ohana about sustainability and electric vehicles at The Real Deal Showcase and Forum. Watch the video here. ⚡
🏢Hypar launched an exciting integration with SkyCiv for easy, quick structural analysis on Hypar-generated models.
Pique Action featured 75F and its mission to improve indoor air quality while cutting emissions in a micro-documentary. 🎥
🌱Dandelion CEO Michael Sachse joined more than 30 industry leaders in the CEOs for Electrification pledge.
ArchDaily named Canoa one of the best new practices of the year. 🛶
Global Design News published a feature on Blokable’s Phoenix Rising as a sustainable solution to the housing crisis. ♻️
🏗 GoContractor announced an enterprise agreement with McCarthy.
Construction Global named Built Robotics one of the top ten innovative startups to watch this year. 🤖
Musings & More
🦺Newmetrix CEO Josh Kanner spoke about the importance of data collection, AI-fueled predictive analytics, and more during his session for Built Worlds US Summit 2021.
Measurabl published its first ever sustainability report. You can read that here. ✍️
🎧Michael Beckerman hosted a few of our Building Ventures portfolio founders on the CREtech Climate podcast this season, including Dandelion’s Kathy Hanuun, Measurabl’s Matt Ellis, and 75F’s Deepinder Singh. You can listen here.
Join.build welcomed Arianna Thayer to the team as the company’s Director of Marketing.👏
At Blueprint, Travis moderated a panel on “Proptech Brightspots in COVID’s Wake.” The panel included Kathleen Collins of Shelter Acquisition Corp., Gavin Myers of Prudence, James Segil of Openpath, and Chris Yip of RET Ventures.
Jesse returned to his alma mater Indiana University to teach a class on sustainability and the built environment to Dr. Aaron Deslatte’s graduate students.
Heather recently joined the Advisory Committee for Women in PropTech, a global community of professionals committed to innovation, technology, and the future of real estate.
Last month, Allen launched BVIN’s new webinar series on the future of the built environment with a session from Blokable’s Aaron Holm on the future of housing development. He’s traveling to London this week for the next webinar featuring Mace CEO Mark Reynolds.
At AGC Construct, Gregg participated in the panel discussion on “Construction Technology from a Venture Capital Perspective.” He joined Kaustubh Pandya of Brick & Mortar Ventures and K.P. Reddy, Founder, Shadow Ventures, as well as moderator Thai Nguyen of Hensel Phelps.
