New York-based Geek Ventures has led a $9.8 million Series A funding round for Austin, Texas-based Jome, which runs a real estate marketplace for new construction homes. Forefront VP, also of New York, U.Ventures and Toloka VC also participated.
Prior investors in a $5.5 million round in 2023 included Gaingels, Asymmetry Ventures the angel syndicate Unpopular Ventures, and several other angel investors.
Ukrainian Founders
Jome was initially founded as NewHomesMate by Ukrainian entrepreneurs Dan Hnatkovskyy and Sofia Vyshnevska. Hnatkovskyy is a serial entrepreneur with ventures in his native Ukraine (tech news blog and shopping recommendation engine Preenster), as well as in the Netherlands (Brainify, which enabled sales automation for real estate). Vyshnevska is a Techstars alumni (2019) and was listed among 25 Women in Technology in Forbes Ukraine. Hnatkovskyy has been listed in Forbes’ 30 Under 30.
With a presence in 16 U.S. cities including Miami, Fla., Austin, Texas, and Denver, Colo., Jome expects to use the new capital to expand its regional footprint.
“Jome has taken on an ambitious mission to fix access to housing, and has shown significant success on this path already. The company has improved market efficiency for buyers and builders all over the country, as its outstanding growth trajectory shows,” said Ihar Mahaniok, a managing partner at Geek Ventures, which has consistently backed immigrant-founded startups.
Critical Function
Hnatkovskyy says they created Jome to remove prevalent industry bottlenecks in sale of new homes, while helping new homebuyers with advice from certified real estate experts.
Commercial Real Estate
MacKenzie Companies
Advertising / Media / Communications / Public Relations
Nevins & Associates
Financial Services / Investment Firms
Chesapeake Corporate Advisors
Commercial Real Estate
Monday Properties
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Blue Delta Capital Partners
Internet / Technology
Foxtrot Media
“There’s a shortage of 4 to 7 million homes in the U.S., making the building and selling of new construction homes a crucial lifeline to alleviate this crisis,” said Hnatkovskyy. “However, most newly built homes, or one third of single-family homes on the market, aren’t even listed on the major real estate listing platforms and instead tucked away in builders’ spreadsheets.”
Jome addresses this problem by leveraging AI and machine learning to aggregate scattered data on available new construction homes, such as pricing, builder incentives, amenities and air quality scores in the neighborhood. The company says it has helped over 100,000 buyers in their search and generated over $250 million in sales for homebuilders, including D.R. Horton, Lennar and PulteGroup. The company’s revenue has risen over three-fold since its seed round in 2023.
Geek Ventures’ portfolio includes Instacart, Pandadoc, People.ai and Airbyte. It has invested in more than 40 companies across AI, proptech, healthtech, marketplaces and other sectors, and backed a number of startups with immigrant founders.
