Litehaus raises €1.46M pre-seed to build home-building platform

Summary

All Thibault Launay and his wife Simi wanted nearly five years ago was to build a dream home in Portugal, where they both now live. But what they encountered instead was a broken system. “Fourteen months of delays, 20% budget overruns, and endless stress managing over 10 subcontractors,” Thibault recalled. They bought the land in December 2020, got the construction license in early 2022, and started building that year. “That was supposed to finish in February 2024,” he said. But it’s May 2025, and the home still isn’t done. “We realized,” he continued, “if we’re struggling with this, so are millions of others.” So Thibault, himself a serial founder and entrepreneur, and Simi, a consultant and also a founder, launched Litehaus, a company that touts to help landowners and property developers build homes in a more efficient and sustainable way. It tackles a pressing need in both the U.S. and the European markets: the ability to build affordable homes. Litehaus, which launched early last year, calls itself the “Uber of construction,” with Thibault saying the company just wants to connect all the currently fragmented parts of the home-building process. It matches landowners and property developers with other professionals such as construction companies, architects, contractors, and interior designers. The company allows users to track costs, coordinate schedules with the hired workers, and track the progress of the building in real time. “As a go-to-market strategy, we decided to focus mainly on modular construction, allowing us to build 30% cheaper, 40% faster, and 60% more sustainably,” Thibault said, adding that meant 90% less waste and 50% less CO2 emissions compared with traditional construction. Others in the modular construction space include the US-based Ginosko Modular and Flummerfelt and the India-based Schnelle Prefabs, according to Pitchbook. Litehaus has at least one U.S. construction company in its network as it looks to further its expansion in the country...