Thrive Capital Leads $34M Investment Round Into ADU Startup
Following a push from California officials to produce more housing, a startup that builds prefabricated accessory dwelling units has secured funding to expand.
Redwood City, California-based Samara closed a $34M Series B funding round led by New York venture capital firm Thrive Capital, the startup announced Wednesday.
Samara is backed by short-term rental giant Airbnb. The ADU startup was founded as part of Airbnb but spun out in 2022.
The Series B funding round comes after the startup surpassed $100M in total project value across California and opened its second manufacturing facility.
The manufacturing facility added 200K SF to its existing 150K SF facility in an effort to meet market demand for these smaller residential units. In the last year, Samara has generated active projects in 45 cities across California.
The company also signaled plans to expand to multifamily housing.
“Propelled by state legislation that makes it easier to add new housing units, we’re scaling our operations to deliver high-quality solutions for not just homeowners, but also multifamily property owners – an increasingly important audience for us,” Samara CEO Mike McNamara said in a release.
The startup earlier this year partnered with Steadfast LA to donate 80 to 100 homes to wildfire victims in the Los Angeles area.
California leaders have taken significant action to ramp up housing production across the state.
In July, state lawmakers passed changes to the California Environmental Quality Act to speed up housing construction by exempting certain projects from environmental review. The changes will now exempt infill housing projects that meet local zoning, density and planning standards from review.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has also signed several laws in recent years that have eased requirements for homeowners to build ADUs, including a statewide mandate to allow ADUs by right.
Reframe Systems, another startup seeking to address the housing shortage by building modular units, raised $20M last month in its Series A round.
