What Happened
Congrats to Alliance member Plant Prefab for securing a new round of Series A funding from Obvious Ventures and Amazon Alexa Fund, which will go toward investments in new senior hires, building the marketing and sales team, and developing Plant Prefab’s patented Plant Building System.
In a Fast Company article, Steve Glenn also says they will be working with Amazon “to create better integrated Alexa and other smart home technology solutions to help improve the quality of life and utility of people who live in the homes [they] build.”
Why It Matters
Specifically, it’s the first direct investment from Amazon in homebuilding. Whether they will invest in other builders to further the adoption of their technology or become a builder themselves remains to be seen.
In general, construction startup and venture capital activity reached more than $1B in the first half of this year (not including Katerra’s $800M), a record high and up 30% year over year. Roughly 70% went to first round Series A funding for new companies and innovation.
Earlier this week at the NAHB Systems Building Summit, Margaret Whelan shared these stats and discussed how the surge in funding creates opportunities for the industry to more universally adopt software, technology and computer power to offset cost inflation, labor shortages and lack of productivity we’ve been experiencing to date.