Honest Buildings Announces Financing Led by RockPort Capital and Mohr Davidow Ventures

NEW YORK, Sept. 11, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Honest Buildings, a fast-growing real estate network connecting professionals to new business opportunities and information for buildings across the U.S., announced today the completion of its first round of financing led by RockPort Capital and Mohr Davidow Ventures. The amount of investment and the terms are not disclosed.

Since releasing its beta website on March 20, 2012, Honest Buildings has launched its platform in New York City, Washington DC, San Francisco, Seattle, Austin, Dallas and Houston, aggregating detailed information for over 600,000 buildings, and engaging thousands of companies from all sectors of the real estate and construction industries.

In conjunction with the financing announcement, Honest Buildings is also releasing today information for more than 37,000 buildings in Portland, OR and the surrounding counties.

"Honest Buildings has identified two large problems for millions of real estate professionals: finding accurate information about buildings and generating targeted new business opportunities," said Dhiraj Malkani, Partner at RockPort Capital. "Their solution is an innovative platform that empowers individuals to connect with one another and with the buildings and projects they have worked on."

The Honest Buildings network has a unique online profile for every building with an address, where owners, professionals and occupants can connect, share information, and exchange proposals for projects. Anyone can join for free and use the service to compare buildings, projects or companies based on any number of criteria, empowering individuals to make better-informed decisions about real estate.

"We were attracted by the team's approach to applying social networking and big data strategies to a real estate industry that is still very fragmented and offline," said Marianne Wu, Partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures. "This is a huge market and we're very excited about their ability to create significant new efficiencies for building owners, service providers and occupants."

As part of its platform, Honest Buildings streamlines the antiquated and time-consuming process of distributing requests for proposals and receiving bids with its proprietary matching engine that helps real estate decision makers find the best people for their next project.

"By connecting owners, professionals, governments and occupants, we are catalyzing the conversations that lead to innovation and new business," said Riggs Kubiak, Co-founder and CEO of Honest Buildings. "The Honest Buildings network brings these formerly offline relationships online, creating value for every stakeholder."

Real estate and construction professionals—from architects to brokers to contractors to consultants—create personal profiles on Honest Buildings to showcase their portfolio of work, highlight their accomplishments and endorsements, and connect with colleagues and prospective customers. Organizations—from private businesses to trade organizations to city governments and non-profits—also create profiles to showcase their work, communicate with employees or members, and to drive new business opportunities.

The seed round also includes investments from Spring Ventures, Lisa Gansky, entrepreneur and author of "The Mesh," Michael Adler, former CFO and Executive Vice President of Expedia.com, and other angel investors with decades of experience in the real estate and construction industries.

"Honest Buildings is bringing the same type of efficiencies to the real estate market that Expedia and Trip Advisor did to the Travel industry," said Adler. "Not only is the platform going to catalyze business for real estate companies big and small, but the transparency they are providing is also going to accelerate the adoption of more high performance, energy efficient buildings."

"We congratulate Honest Buildings on reaching this milestone and look forward to helping the team grow and scale up their innovative business," said Micah Kotch, director of the New York City Accelerator for a Clean and Renewable Economy (NYC ACRE at NYU-Poly). "Interesting things are happening in New York at the intersection of energy and info tech, and we are proud to be working with Honest Buildings and 10 other vibrant start-ups in our incubator at the heart of this dynamic change."

With the new financing, the company plans to continue rolling out its platform in more cities across the country, as well as internationally, and to add new hires to its product development and sales and marketing teams.

About Honest Buildings, Inc.

Honest Buildings helps people find and compare information about any commercial or residential building in the U.S., simply by typing in an address. The website provides users a rich source of valuable building information—from square footage, to building ownership and management, to the projects and renovations that have been performed on a building—and a platform where owners, managers and tenants can connect with service providers, brokers and vendors so they can do business faster and more efficiently than ever before. The rapidly growing real estate network launched March 20, 2012, and already has a detailed online profile for over 600,000 buildings across the U.S. and thousands of companies from every sector of the real estate industry. Founded in 2011 by Riggs Kubiak, former Global Head of Sustainability for Tishman Speyer, and marketing and Internet veterans Garrett Kubiak and Cody Roberts, it is co-located in New York City in the NYC ACRE incubator and in Seattle.

About NYC ACRE at NYU-Poly

The New York City Accelerator for a Clean and Renewable Economy (NYC ACRE at NYU-Poly) helps grow clean technology and renewable energy companies in New York City, advancing the city as a role model for a low carbon future. NYC ACRE is seeded by a four year, $1.5 million grant from the New York State Energy and Research Development Authority (NYSERDA) to Polytechnic Institute of New York University (NYU-Poly). Aimed at assisting entrepreneurs and innovative, scalable start-ups that are providing solutions to climate and energy issues, the initiative focuses on growing the cleantech/renewable energy sector and creating technology jobs in New York City. For more information, visit www.nycacre.com.

SOURCE Honest Buildings