One Raven Launches With $5M Seed Round

One Raven, a smart home system, announced Tuesday its launch with a $5 million seed round. Proptech venture capital firm Fifth Wall led the round for the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based startup.

Co-founded by Lucas Haldeman, now its CEO, and Sarah Roudybush, its president, One Raven claims it is the first privacy-focused smart home platform to give homeowners control of their data on premises, rather than connecting through the cloud. (Haldeman and Roudybush were the team behind SmartRent’s successful smart apartment platform.) 

One Raven has built its own tablet-sized server and proprietary coding. Its servers allow every device to run locally, keeping homeowner data stored on home networks. Homeowners can securely access and manage the system remotely, with no subscriptions, no hidden fees, and no behavioral data monetized in the background, the company says.

“We’ve looked at smart home ecosystems — Sarah and I have spent the past 15 years in the space, love everything that smart homes can do and all the great conveniences they bring us — but we realized that there’s a gap in that all the private data you’re creating within your home is being shared with Big Tech or being shared outside of your home,” said Haldeman. “We wanted to create a smart home system that is privacy first. I think it’s something that’s really resonating, especially in the AI world we’re living in of derivative data, data leakage, and everything that’s happening around that.”

The system’s hardware is built outside the U.S., with its software created in Arizona, and is priced between $2,500 to $3,500 for a “normal single-family home,” Haldeman said.

“It’s not going to be the cheapest solution, partly because we’re not selling your data, and partly because we’re not charging ongoing subscriptions,” he said. “We’re not trying to compete with Big Tech. This isn’t going to be something you see on Prime Days for $25. But we’re also trying to help consumers understand why we want to sell you something for such a low price, and how others are making their money off you.”

The One Raven system pairs its server with smart devices that work without sending a home’s data to the cloud. Homeowners can configure each home with the devices they want, including thermostats, locks, leak detectors and security sensors. Every system arrives pre-paired and factory-configured. The full system already knows itself before the box is opened, according to the company.

Phase 2 of One Raven’s system development will include video and doorbell camera components, Haldeman added.

One Raven has 15-plus full-time employees and is using its seed funding to hire across hardware engineering, software, field deployment and go-to-market roles in Phoenix, he said. The company will announce its first homebuilder partnerships later in the third quarter.

Aside from its niche focus on privacy, One Raven is ultimately competing against the incumbent smart home players such as Amazon, Google and ADP on the security side, Haldeman said.

Despite such competition, Brendan Wallace, founder, CEO and CIO at Fifth Wall, is confident in his firm’s investment.

“What very much attracted us to the business is two things,” said Wallace. “One, having worked with Lucas and Sarah before at SmartRent, and seeing how they built that business, which truly modernized and became the dominant platform in that industry. We were early investors there and built a very close relationship. The second thing is that I think this question of data is very real. There’s that famous axiom: If you’re not paying for a product, you are the product. I think to some extent the same can be said about discounts around products, meaning if you’re not paying full price for a product, you’re the product, and you are being sold.

“You are always paying at some level, you’re just paying in the form of privacy. I believe there’s this unique moment in time where the convergence of wanting your home to be smart and this need for privacy lends itself to a one-stop solution.”

Philip Russo can be reached at prusso@commercialobserver.com.