Honest Buildings, a New York City-based startup that’s created a web platform to connect professionals in the real estate construction and design space, is announcing today that it’s raised $5.5 million in Series A funding.
The round was led by the Westly Group and RockPort Capital Partners, and brings the total invested in Honest Buildings to date to $7.5 million. This past fall, Honest Buildings raised seed funding from RockPort and Mohr Davidow Ventures.
Honest Buildings, which has been described as a cross between Yelp and LinkedIn for building pros, was originally conceived as a platform to let commercial real estate owners assess the environmental impact of their new office building projects and choose the building construction and design firms accordingly. Today it is a more general marketplace for building solution providers to showcase portfolios of their work and connect with people looking to build new buildings or upgrade existing ones.
The funding comes on the heels of some solid growth for the company, which has a full-time staff of 12: Over the past five months, some $25 million in building contracts were originated through the Honest Buildings platform, and the company counts industry giants such as Cushman & Wakefield as users. Also, Honest Buildings says it recently launched an office in London to expand into the UK market.
The enterprise software space is heating up, and the commercial real estate sector has notably lagged behind residential when it comes to web-based tools, so it will be interesting to see how services such as Honest Buildings grow in the months ahead.