Samara, a Redwood City, CA-based company designing, building, installing, and financing accessory dwelling units (ADUs), raised $34M in Series B funding.
A nonprofit created by businessman Rick Caruso is partnering with a startup to offer potentially dozens of prefabricated, fire- resistant homes at no cost to low-income residents devastated by the wildfires in Altadena and the Pacific Palisades.
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The initiative, the first for Caruso’s newly formed Steadfast LA, is backed by a $15 million pledge from Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia, whose company Samara will build, install and handle the permitting for the factory-built homes. Gebbia will donate the initial $5 million toward the effort and match up to $10 million in additional donations, according to an announcement.
“This initiative is about keeping communities intact,” said Caruso, chairman of Steadfast LA, in a statement. “Many of the people struggling the most right now are those who have lived in these neighborhoods for decades. They built their homes many years ago, they’re underinsured or lack insurance, and now they have lost everything. We’re giving these victims a realistic way to stay on their properties and quickly return to their lives at a time when the deck is stacked against them.”
Samara’s models range from a 420-square-foot studio to a 950-square-foot, two-bedroom home. The largest unit runs about $261,000, with the price tag roughly doubling once installation, permitting and other setup costs are added in, according to Mike McNamara, Samara’s CEO.
The prefabs feature metal roofs and fire-resistant exterior walls, dual-pane glass windows and an HVAC system capable of filtering out particles as small as 0.5 microns, such as smoke, according to Samara’s website.
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